The Easterlin Paradox in Italy, or the Paradox in Measuring? Define Happiness Before Investigating It

Fabrizio Antolini () and Biagio Simonetti ()
Additional contact information
Fabrizio Antolini: University of Teramo
Biagio Simonetti: University of Sannio

Social Indicators Research: An International and Interdisciplinary Journal for Quality-of-Life Measurement, 2019, vol. 146, issue 1, No 16, 263-285

Abstract: Abstract The Easterlin paradox (Easterlin, in: Paul, Reder (eds) Nations and household in economic growth: essay in honor of Moses Abramovitz, Academic Press, New York, 1974), for many researchers, is the starting point of studies on the relationship between happiness and GDP and states that after reaching a certain level of income, happiness decreases instead of increasing. The Comparison Theory (Schyns in Soc Indic Res 43:3–2, 1998) and Van Praag and Kapteyn’s (Eur Econ Rev 4(1):33–62, 1973) also show that if an individual’s income increases, it is not related into an increase in income satisfaction and the same mechanism applies to happiness, depending on several aspects. Today and in the future not only the growth of income but also the achievement of happiness have become a political objective and politicians will direct their policy towards these objectives. Furthermore, the interpretation of the relation between GDP and happiness remains one of the most recurring controversial errors in the framework and methodology used, although understanding of what makes people happy helps politicians to direct their policies. In Italy the Easterlin paradox seems to have found confirmation, but not a historical explanation also because the study of the relation between GDP and happiness, confirming the need to use appropriate indicators in the study of the relationship between economic development and happiness, for instance alternative national accounts indicators for GDP, or antidepressant expenditure for (un)happiness. The paper suggests “to define happiness before investigating it”, proposing a definition of happiness that also indicates an appropriate methodology to analyze if people can be happy in the economic system.

Keywords: National accounting; Happiness; GDP; Easterlin paradox; Antidepressant consumers (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Date: 2019
References: View references in EconPapers View complete reference list from CitEc
Citations:

Downloads: (external link)
http://link.springer.com/10.1007/s11205-018-1890-7 Abstract (text/html)
Access to the full text of the articles in this series is restricted.

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:spr:soinre:v:146:y:2019:i:1:d:10.1007_s11205-018-1890-7

Ordering information: This journal article can be ordered from
http://www.springer.com/economics/journal/11135

DOI: 10.1007/s11205-018-1890-7

Access Statistics for this article

Social Indicators Research: An International and Interdisciplinary Journal for Quality-of-Life Measurement is currently edited by Filomena Maggino

More articles in Social Indicators Research: An International and Interdisciplinary Journal for Quality-of-Life Measurement from Springer
Bibliographic data for series maintained by Sonal Shukla () and Springer Nature Abstracting and Indexing ().