What do Happiness Data Mean? Theory and Survey Evidence-Reference-Cited by-同舟云学术

What do Happiness Data Mean? Theory and Survey Evidence

Published:2023-05-26 Issue:6 Volume:21 Page:2377-2412
ISSN:1542-4766
Container-title:Journal of the European Economic Association
language:en
Short-container-title:

Author:

Benjamin Daniel J¹,Debnam Guzman Jakina²,Fleurbaey Marc³,Heffetz Ori⁴⁵,Kimball Miles⁶

Affiliation:

1. UCLA Anderson School of Management and UCLA David Geffen School of Medicine , USA

2. Department of Economics, Amherst College , USA

3. Paris School of Economics , France

4. Bogen Family Department of Economics and Federmann Center for the Study of Rationality, The Hebrew University of Jerusalem , Israel and , USA

5. S.C. Johnson Graduate School of Management, Cornell University , Israel and , USA

6. Department of Economics, University of Colorado Boulder , USA

Abstract

Abstract What utility notion—e.g. flow/lifetime, self/family-centered—do self-reported well-being (SWB) questions measure? Existing applications make different assumptions regarding the (i) life domains, (ii) time horizons, and (iii) other-regarding preferences captured by SWB data. To obtain relevant evidence, we ask survey respondents what they had in mind regarding (i)–(iii) when answering commonly used—life satisfaction, happiness, ladder—and new SWB questions. We find that respondents’ self-reports differ from researchers’ assumptions and differ across SWB questions and sociodemographic groups. At the same time, simple SWB-question wording tweaks are effective in moving self-reports toward desired interpretations. We outline actionable suggestions for SWB researchers. (JEL: D69, D90, I31)

Publisher

Oxford University Press (OUP)

Subject

General Economics, Econometrics and Finance

Link

https://academic.oup.com/jeea/advance-article-pdf/doi/10.1093/jeea/jvad026/54034495/jvad026.pdf

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