The persistence of subjective wellbeing: permanent happiness, transitory misery?

Lionel Wilner

Documents de Travail de l'Insee - INSEE Working Papers from Institut National de la Statistique et des Etudes Economiques

Abstract: This paper disentangles the roles played by state dependence and unobserved heterogeneity in self-assessed happiness. It estimates a dynamic nonlinear model of subjective well-being on longitudinal data, primarily from France, but also from Australia, Germany, and the UK. Life satisfaction is persistent over time, which static models ignore. This persistence is heterogeneous across individuals: it concerns mostly those already happy with their lives while, in contrast, unhappiness seems more transitory. The impact of initial conditions is large in comparison with usual determinants of happiness, or with state dependence.

Keywords: Happiness; subjective well-being; life satisfaction; dynamic model; state dependence; correlated random effects; initial conditions. (search for similar items in EconPapers)
JEL-codes: I31 (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Date: 2020
New Economics Papers: this item is included in nep-eur, nep-hap and nep-ltv
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https://www.bnsp.insee.fr/ark:/12148/bc6p06zrk0t/f1.pdf Document de travail de la DESE numéro G2020/08 (application/pdf)

Related works:
Working Paper: Malheur éphémère, bonheur durable (2022)
Working Paper: The Dynamics of Individual Happiness (2019)
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Persistent link: https://EconPapers.repec.org/RePEc:nse:doctra:g2020-08

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