Formal Institutions and Subjective Well-Being: Revisiting the Cross-Country Evidence

Christian Bjørnskov, Axel Dreher and Justina A. V. Fischer

No 699, SSE/EFI Working Paper Series in Economics and Finance from Stockholm School of Economics

Abstract: A long tradition in economics explores the association between the quality of formal institutions and economic performance. The literature on the relationship between such institutions and happiness is, however, rather limited. In this paper, we revisit the findings from recent cross-country studies on the institutions-happiness association. Our findings suggest that the conclusions reached by previous studies are fairly sensitive to the specific measure of ‘happiness’ used. In addition, the results indicate that the welfare effects of policies may differ across phases of a country’s economic development. This bears important policy implications which we discuss in the concluding section of the paper.

Keywords: Happiness; Well-Being; institutions; policy implications; democracy; rule of law; government efficiency (search for similar items in EconPapers)
JEL-codes: H10 H40 I31 (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Pages: 38 pages
Date: 2008-04-02
New Economics Papers: this item is included in nep-hap, nep-hpe and nep-pbe
References: View references in EconPapers View complete reference list from CitEc
Citations: View citations in EconPapers (13)

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Related works:
Journal Article: Formal institutions and subjective well-being: Revisiting the cross-country evidence (2010)
Working Paper: Formal Institutions and Subjective Well-Being: Revisiting the Cross-Country Evidence (2010)
Working Paper: Formal Institutions and Subjective Well-Being: Revisiting the Cross-Country Evidence (2009)
Working Paper: Formal Institutions and Subjective Well-Being: Revisiting the Cross-Country Evidence (2008)
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Persistent link: https://EconPapers.repec.org/RePEc:hhs:hastef:0699

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