Paradox Lost?

No 9676, IZA Discussion Papers from Institute of Labor Economics (IZA)

Abstract: Or Paradox Regained? The answer is Paradox Regained. New data confirm that for countries worldwide long-term trends in happiness and real GDP per capita are not significantly positively related. The principal reason that Paradox critics reach a different conclusion, aside from problems of data comparability, is that they do not focus on identifying long-term trends in happiness. For some countries their estimated growth rates of happiness and GDP are not trend rates, but those observed in cyclical expansion or contraction. Mixing these short-term with long-term growth rates shifts a happiness-GDP regression from a horizontal to positive slope.

Keywords: Easterlin Paradox; economic growth; income; happiness; life satisfaction; subjective well-being; transition countries; less developed nations; developed countries; long-term; short-term; trends; fluctuations (search for similar items in EconPapers)
JEL-codes: D60 I31 O10 O5 (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Pages: 35 pages
Date: 2016-01
New Economics Papers: this item is included in nep-evo, nep-hap, nep-hpe and nep-ltv
References: View references in EconPapers View complete reference list from CitEc
Citations: View citations in EconPapers (4)

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Journal Article: Paradox Lost? (2017)
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