Hypertension and Happiness across Nations

David Blanchflower and Andrew Oswald

No 2633, IZA Discussion Papers from Institute of Labor Economics (IZA)

Abstract: A modern statistical literature argues that countries such as Denmark are particularly happy while nations like East Germany are not. Are such claims credible? The paper explores this by building on two ideas. The first is that psychological well-being and high blood-pressure are thought by clinicians to be inversely correlated. The second is that blood-pressure problems can be reported more objectively than mental well-being. Using data on 16 countries, the paper finds that happier nations report lower levels of hypertension. The paper’s results are consistent with, and seem to offer a step towards the validation of, cross-national estimates of well-being.

Keywords: hypertension; blood pressure; Gross National Happiness; national well-being (search for similar items in EconPapers)
JEL-codes: I1 I3 (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Pages: 37 pages
Date: 2007-02
References: View references in EconPapers View complete reference list from CitEc
Citations: View citations in EconPapers (16)

Published - published in: Journal of Health Economics, 2008, 27, 218-233

Downloads: (external link)
https://docs.iza.org/dp2633.pdf (application/pdf)

Related works:
Journal Article: Hypertension and happiness across nations (2008)
Working Paper: Hypertension and Happiness across Nations (2007)
Working Paper: Hypertension and Happiness across Nations (2007)
Working Paper: Hypertension and Happiness across Nations (2007)
Working Paper: Hypertension and Happiness across Nations (2007)
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:iza:izadps:dp2633

Ordering information: This working paper can be ordered from
IZA, Margard Ody, P.O. Box 7240, D-53072 Bonn, Germany

Access Statistics for this paper

More papers in IZA Discussion Papers from Institute of Labor Economics (IZA) IZA, P.O. Box 7240, D-53072 Bonn, Germany. Contact information at EDIRC.
Bibliographic data for series maintained by Holger Hinte ().