世界経済・社会統計 = World development indicators

In recent years, there has been a steadily increasing interest on the part of economists in happiness research. We argue that reported subjective well-being is a satisfactory empirical approximation to individual utility and that happiness research is able to contribute important insights for economics. We report how the economic variables income, unemployment and inflation affect happiness as well as how institutional factors, in particular the type of democracy and the extent of government decentralization, systematically influence how satisfied individuals are with their life. We discuss some of the consequences for economic policy and for economic theory.

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What can economists learn from happiness research

The well-known Easterlin paradox points out that average happiness has remained constant over time despite sharp rises in GNP per head. At the same time, a micro literature has typically found positive correlations between individual income and individual measures of subjective well-being. This paper suggests that these two findings are consistent with the presence of relative income terms in the utility function. Income may be evaluated relative to others (social comparison) or to oneself in the past (habituation). We review the evidence on relative income from the subjective well-being literature. We also discuss the relation (or not) between happiness and utility, and discuss some nonhappiness research (behavioral, experimental, neurological) related to income comparisons. We last consider how relative income in the utility function can affect economic models of behavior in the domains of consumption, investment, economic growth, savings, taxation, labor supply, wages, and migration.

Relative Income, Happiness and Utility: An Explanation for the Easterlin Paradox and Other Puzzles

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Relative income, happiness, and utility : an explanation for the Easterlin paradox and other puzzles

The evidence that the same total income can lead a household to choose different consumption vectors, depending on who brings in how much of the income, has led to an effort to replace the standard unitary model of the household with the ‘collective model’, which recognizes that the husband and the wife may have different preferences and depending on the balance of power between them the household may choose differently. One weakness of this new literature is that it fails to recognize that the household’s choice could in turn influence the balance of power. Once this two-way relation between choice and power is recognized we are forced to confront some new questions concerning how to model the household. This paper tries to answer these by defining a ‘household equilibrium’, examining its game-theoretic properties and drawing out its testable implications. It is shown, for instance, that once we allow for dynamic interaction a household can exhibit inefficient behavior, and that (for a certain class of parameters) children will be less likely to work in a household where power is evenly balanced, than one in which all power is concentrated in the hands of either the father or the mother. The paper also draws out the implications for female labor supply.

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Gender and Say: a Model of Household Behaviour with Endogenously Determined Balance of Power*

Happiness and loss aversion : is utility concave or convex in relative income?

Dynamics of a household norm in female labour supply

Adaptation, anticipation and social interaction in happiness: An integrated error-correction approach

This paper investigates the implications of a general model of locally unstable habit formation with respect to consumption, household time and corporate time. The model is shown to imply multiple long-run equilibria exhibiting hysteresis and catastrophes dependent on rationings and the wage rate. This can explain profound changes in labor supply preferences and behavior such as when long-term unemployed become little motivated to get a new job or when former housewives develop a strong orientation towards paid work.

Habits, hysteresis and catastrophes in labor supply☆

This paper develops a dynamic labor supply model based on unstable bandwagon and habit effects. It possesses multiple long-run equilibria and exhibits hysteresis and transitions between home and market time dependent on the wage rate. These properties are robust. The model provides an explanation of the long-run increase in labor supply by married women in the Netherlands, the USA and other OECD countries.

Maarten C.M. Vendrik

Papers

Happiness and loss aversion : is utility concave or convex in relative income?

Dynamics of a household norm in female labour supply

Adaptation, anticipation and social interaction in happiness: An integrated error-correction approach

Habits, hysteresis and catastrophes in labor supply☆

Unstable bandwagon and habit effects on labor supply