Happiness and victimization in Latin America

Catalina Gomez Toro, Carolina Ortega Londoño, Daniel Gómez Mesa and Lina Cardona Sosa

No 15054, Documentos de Trabajo de Valor Público from Universidad EAFIT

Abstract: In recent decades, studies on economics have identified happiness as a life quality indicator that not only accounts for individuals’ socioeconomic improvement but also accounts for their interactions with institutions and public goods, such as personal safety and protection of life. This study examines the determinants of individual happiness of Latin American citizens by focusing on whether the individual had been a victim of a crime in the last twelve months. To do this, a generalized ordered logit with partial constraints is used to analyze data obtained from the Americas Barometer Survey of 2014. The individual self- reported level of life satisfaction is used to study its relationship with having been a victim of a crime during the previous year. The results suggest the existence of a negative relationship between having been a victim of a crime in the past twelve months and being very satisfied with life.

Keywords: crime; happiness; life satisfaction; generalized ordered logit (search for similar items in EconPapers)
JEL-codes: D62 I3 K42 (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Pages: 20
Date: 2016-09-01
New Economics Papers: this item is included in nep-dcm, nep-hap, nep-lam and nep-sog
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http://hdl.handle.net/10784/9115

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Persistent link: https://EconPapers.repec.org/RePEc:col:000122:015054

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