Rising aspirations dampen satisfaction

Andrew Clark, Akiko Kamesaka and Teruyuki Tamura

Education Economics, 2015, vol. 23, issue 5, 515-531

Abstract: It is commonly believed that education is a good thing for individuals. Yet, its correlation with subjective well-being is most often only weakly positive, or even negative, despite the many associated better individual-level outcomes. We here square the circle using novel Japanese data on happiness aspirations. If reported happiness comes from a comparison of outcomes to aspirations, then any phenomenon raising both at the same time will have only a muted effect on reported well-being. We find that around half of the happiness effect of education is cancelled out by higher aspirations, and suggest a similar dampening effect for income.

Date: 2015
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Citations: View citations in EconPapers (27)

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Related works:
Working Paper: Rising Aspirations Dampen Satisfaction (2015)
Working Paper: Rising aspirations dampen satisfaction (2015)
Working Paper: Rising aspirations dampen satisfaction (2015)
Working Paper: Rising Aspirations Dampen Satisfaction (2015)
Working Paper: Rising Aspirations Dampen Satisfaction (2015)
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DOI: 10.1080/09645292.2015.1042960

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