EconPapers    
Economics at your fingertips  
 

Hypertension and Happiness across Nations

David Blanchflower and Andrew Oswald

The Warwick Economics Research Paper Series (TWERPS) from University of Warwick, Department of Economics

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: Gross National Happiness; blood pressure; national well-being; hypertension (search for similar items in EconPapers)
JEL-codes: I1 I3 (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Pages: 35 pages
Date: 2007
References: View references in EconPapers View complete reference list from CitEc
Citations: View citations in EconPapers (62)

Downloads: (external link)
https://warwick.ac.uk/fac/soc/economics/research/w ... s/2008/twerp_792.pdf

Related works:
Journal Article: Hypertension and happiness across nations (2008) Downloads
Working Paper: Hypertension and Happiness across Nations (2007) Downloads
Working Paper: Hypertension and Happiness across Nations (2007) Downloads
Working Paper: Hypertension and Happiness across Nations (2007) Downloads
Working Paper: Hypertension and Happiness across Nations (2007) Downloads
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:wrk:warwec:792

Access Statistics for this paper

More papers in The Warwick Economics Research Paper Series (TWERPS) from University of Warwick, Department of Economics Contact information at EDIRC.
Bibliographic data for series maintained by Margaret Nash ().

 
Page updated 2025-03-22
Handle: RePEc:wrk:warwec:792