Sechel, C. orcid.org/0000-0002-8653-3443 (2021) The share of satisfied individuals : a headcount measure of aggregate subjective well-being. Journal of Economic Behavior & Organization, 186. pp. 373-394. ISSN 0167-2681
Abstract
This paper proposes the use of headcount-based indicators for the measurement of national Subjective Well-Being (SWB). I argue for the adoption of sufficientarianism as the guiding principle for aggregate measures of SWB, as opposed to the widely used average utilitarianism. I construct measures of the share of sufficiently satisfied individuals using reported life satisfaction data from the World/European Values Surveys across a range of sufficiency thresholds. A Beta-regression approach is employed to explore the empirical relationships between these measures and objective indicators of well-being. The use of this model is novel in this context. The findings reveal relationships between objective measures of development and SWB that are not apparent from analysis relying on conventional average measures of SWB. For example, I find no significant link between national income and the share of satisfied individuals when cultural controls are included (except when the sufficiency threshold is very high), which suggests that the SWB benefit of higher average incomes is limited from a sufficientarian point of view.
Metadata
Item Type: | Article |
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Authors/Creators: |
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Copyright, Publisher and Additional Information: | © 2021 Elsevier. This is an author produced version of a paper subsequently published in Journal of Economic Behavior & Organization. Uploaded in accordance with the publisher's self-archiving policy. Article available under the terms of the CC-BY-NC-ND licence (https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc-nd/4.0/). |
Keywords: | Subjective well-being; Cognitive dissonance theory; Beta-regression |
Dates: |
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Institution: | The University of Sheffield |
Academic Units: | The University of Sheffield > Faculty of Social Sciences (Sheffield) > Department of Economics (Sheffield) |
Depositing User: | Symplectic Sheffield |
Date Deposited: | 18 Jun 2021 09:11 |
Last Modified: | 01 Nov 2022 01:13 |
Status: | Published |
Publisher: | Elsevier BV |
Refereed: | Yes |
Identification Number: | 10.1016/j.jebo.2021.03.036 |
Open Archives Initiative ID (OAI ID): | oai:eprints.whiterose.ac.uk:175380 |
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