Individual Welfare and Subjective Well-Being: Commentary Inspired by Sacks, Stevenson and Wolfers

Peter Hammond, Federica Liberini and Eugenio Proto

No 270767, Economic Research Papers from University of Warwick - Department of Economics

Abstract: Sacks, Stevenson and Wolfers (2010) question earlier results like Easterlin’s showing that long-run economic growth often fails to improve individuals’ average reports of their own subjective well-being (SWB). We use World Values Survey data to establish that the proportion of individuals reporting happiness level h, and whose income falls below any fixed threshold, always diminishes as h increases. The implied positive association between income and reported happiness suggests that it is possible in principle to construct multi-dimensional summary statistics based on reported SWB that could be used to evaluate economic policy.

Keywords: Financial; Economics (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Pages: 20
Date: 2011-03-28
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Citations: View citations in EconPapers (2)

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Working Paper: Individual Welfare and Subjective Well-Being: Commentary Inspired by Sacks, Stevenson and Wolfers (2011)
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Persistent link: https://EconPapers.repec.org/RePEc:ags:uwarer:270767

DOI: 10.22004/ag.econ.270767

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