Happy for how long? How social capital and economic growth relate to happiness over time

Stefano Bartolini and Francesco Sarracino

Ecological Economics, 2014, vol. 108, issue C, 242-256

Abstract: What predicts the evolution over time of subjective well-being? We correlate the trends of subjective well-being with the trends of social capital and/or GDP. We find that in the long and the medium run social capital largely predicts the trends of subjective well-being. In the short-term this relationship weakens. Indeed, in the short run, changes in social capital predict a much smaller portion of the changes in subjective well-being than over longer periods. GDP follows a reverse path, thus confirming the Easterlin paradox: in the short run GDP is more positively correlated to well-being than in the medium-term, while in the long run this correlation vanishes.

Keywords: Easterlin paradox; Economic growth; Subjective well-being; Social capital; Time-series; WVS–EVS and ESS (search for similar items in EconPapers)
JEL-codes: D60 I31 O10 (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Date: 2014
References: View references in EconPapers View complete reference list from CitEc
Citations: View citations in EconPapers (54)

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Persistent link: https://EconPapers.repec.org/RePEc:eee:ecolec:v:108:y:2014:i:c:p:242-256

DOI: 10.1016/j.ecolecon.2014.10.004

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