Well-Being and Ill-Being: A Bivariate Panel Data Analysis

Wang-Sheng Lee and Umut Oguzoglu ()

Melbourne Institute Working Paper Series from Melbourne Institute of Applied Economic and Social Research, The University of Melbourne

Abstract: The aim of this paper is to estimate in a multivariate context the factors associated with well-being and ill-being without making the assumptions that they are opposite ends of the same continuum, and that the factors uniformly affect both well-being and ill-being. Using the first five waves of panel data from the Household, Income and Labour Dynamics in Australia (HILDA) survey, we jointly model positive and negative well-being in a two-equation dynamic panel data model. We found that while past ill-being had significant effect on current well-being there was no support for a reverse relationship (i.e. lagged effect of well-being on current ill-being). In addition, we also found support for asymmetry in how certain factors affect well-being and ill-being. The implication of the findings in this paper for the happiness literature is that for future empirical work, it would perhaps more prudent to begin with the notion that well-being and ill-being are distinct dimensions, that the unobservables that affect well-being and ill-being are correlated, and to specify econometric models that allow for these concepts to be reflected.

Pages: 25 pages
Date: 2007-10
New Economics Papers: this item is included in nep-hap and nep-ltv
References: View references in EconPapers View complete reference list from CitEc
Citations: View citations in EconPapers (1)

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http://melbourneinstitute.unimelb.edu.au/downloads ... series/wp2007n28.pdf (application/pdf)

Related works:
Working Paper: Well-Being and Ill-Being: A Bivariate Panel Data Analysis (2007)
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Persistent link: https://EconPapers.repec.org/RePEc:iae:iaewps:wp2007n28

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