Happiness in the Air: How Does a Dirty Sky Affect Subjective Well-being?

Xin Zhang, Xiaobo Zhang and Xi Chen

No 9312, IZA Discussion Papers from Institute of Labor Economics (IZA)

Abstract: Existing studies that evaluate the impact of pollution on human beings understate its negative effect on cognition, mental health, and happiness. This paper attempts to fill in the gap via investigating the impact of air quality on subjective well-being using China as an example. By matching a unique longitudinal dataset at the individual level, which includes self-reported happiness and mental well-being measures, with contemporaneous local air quality and weather information according to the exact date of interview, we show that worse air quality reduces shorter-term hedonic happiness and increases the rate of depressive symptoms. However, life satisfaction, an evaluative measure of happiness, is largely immune from immediate bad air quality.

Keywords: air quality; mental well-being; life satisfaction; hedonic happiness; China (search for similar items in EconPapers)
JEL-codes: I31 Q51 Q53 (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Pages: 56 pages
Date: 2015-08
New Economics Papers: this item is included in nep-cna, nep-ene, nep-hap and nep-res
References: View references in EconPapers View complete reference list from CitEc
Citations: View citations in EconPapers (12)

Published - pubished as 'Happiness in the air: How does a dirty sky affect mental health and subjective well-being?' in: Journal of Environmental Economics and Management, 2017, 85, 81 - 94

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Related works:
Working Paper: Happiness in the Air: How does a Dirty Sky Affect Subjective Well-Being? (2015)
Working Paper: Happiness in the air: How does a dirty sky affect subjective well-being? (2015)
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