Openness, rural-urban inequality, and happiness in China

Yong Ma and Diandian Chen

Economic Systems, 2020, vol. 44, issue 4

Abstract: Although the relationship between income inequality and subjective well-being has been extensively discussed in the literature, relatively little is known about the effects of openness on subjective well-being and how rural-urban inequality may influence these effects. This article attempts to address this issue by using the dataset of the China General Social Survey (CGSS). We find that the effect of trade openness on happiness takes an inverted U shape, whereas that of financial openness is U-shaped. We also find that rural-urban inequality has a dampening effect on happiness, and this effect is strengthened by trade openness but weakened by financial openness. These findings extend previous studies on the determinants of happiness by highlighting the different effects associated with trade openness and financial openness and how these effects may interact with rural-urban inequality.

Keywords: Financial openness; Happiness; Rural-urban inequality; Trade openness (search for similar items in EconPapers)
JEL-codes: D63 I31 O15 (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Date: 2020
References: View references in EconPapers View complete reference list from CitEc
Citations: View citations in EconPapers (4)

Downloads: (external link)
http://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S0939362520301527
Full text for ScienceDirect subscribers only

Related works:
This item may be available elsewhere in EconPapers: Search for items with the same title.

Export reference: BibTeX RIS (EndNote, ProCite, RefMan) HTML/Text

Persistent link: https://EconPapers.repec.org/RePEc:eee:ecosys:v:44:y:2020:i:4:s0939362520301527

DOI: 10.1016/j.ecosys.2020.100834

Access Statistics for this article

Economic Systems is currently edited by R. Frensch

More articles in Economic Systems from Elsevier Contact information at EDIRC.
Bibliographic data for series maintained by Catherine Liu ().