Relationship between happiness and income: evidence from panel smoothing transition regression in Great Britain

Eleftherios Giovanis ()

International Journal of Happiness and Development, 2015, vol. 2, issue 4, 346-370

Abstract: The purpose of the paper is to test empirically the relationship between happiness, life satisfaction and income in Great Britain. The methodology followed is panel smoothing transition regression (PSTR) models using the British Household Panel Survey (BHPS). The data period examined in the current study covers the period 1991-2009. Regarding the logistic PSTR model the findings show that in the linear regime the association between household income, happiness and life satisfaction is insignificant. After some point the income has positive and significant effects on both subjective well-being measures. In the linear regime of the exponential PSTR model the relationship between income and the happiness is positive; however after a specific level of income the association becomes negative. On the other hand, the exponential PSTR model shows that the positive association between income and life satisfaction holds even for higher income levels. The originality of the paper is that panel smoothing transition regression (PSTR) models based on micro-level household data have not been employed before, examining the nonlinear relationship between income happiness and life satisfaction. Both logistic and exponential PSTR models are useful.

Keywords: happiness; life satisfaction; household income; panel smoothing transition regression; PSTR models; UK; United Kingdom; British Household Panel Survey; BHPS; subjective well-being. (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Date: 2015
References: View references in EconPapers View complete reference list from CitEc
Citations:

Downloads: (external link)
http://www.inderscience.com/link.php?id=73943 (text/html)
Access to full text is restricted to subscribers.

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:ids:ijhdev:v:2:y:2015:i:4:p:346-370

Access Statistics for this article

More articles in International Journal of Happiness and Development from Inderscience Enterprises Ltd
Bibliographic data for series maintained by Sarah Parker ().