Adaption or social comparison? The effects of income on happiness

Luis Angeles ()

Working Papers from Business School - Economics, University of Glasgow

Abstract: Two mechanisms have attracted considerable attention from researchers studying the effects of income on happiness: adaptation and social comparison. In most empirical studies these two mechanisms have been considered separately. This paper contributes to the literature by jointly testing for the presence of adaptation and social comparison using UK data. Our results show that the data supports both adaptation and social comparison when we test them separately, but that only adaptation survives when we test them jointly. The result has important consequences for public policy and for our understanding of human motivation.

Date: 2008-11, Revised 2009-06
New Economics Papers: this item is included in nep-hap
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Related works:
Working Paper: Adaptation or Social Comparison? The effects of income on happiness (2010)
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Persistent link: https://EconPapers.repec.org/RePEc:gla:glaewp:2009_09

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