Well-being over time in Britain and the USA

• 成果类型: Article
• 署名作者: Blanchflower, DG; Oswald, AJ
• 署名单位: Dartmouth College; National Bureau of Economic Research; University of Warwick
• 刊物名称: JOURNAL OF PUBLIC ECONOMICS
• ISSN/ISSBN: 0047-2727
• DOI: 10.1016/S0047-2727(02)00168-8
• 发表日期: 2004
• 页码: 1359-1386
• 关键词: well-being; happiness; britain; usa

摘要

This paper studies happiness in the United States and Great Britain. Reported levels of wellbeing have declined over the last quarter of a century in the US; life satisfaction has run approximately flat through time in Britain. These findings are consistent with the Easterlin hypothesis [Nations and Households in Economic Growth: Essays in Honour of Moses Abramowitz (1974) Academic Press; J. Econ. Behav. Org., 27 (1995) 35]. The happiness of American blacks, however, has risen. White women in the US have been the biggest losers since the 1970s. Well-being equations have a stable structure. Money buys happiness. People care also about relative income. Well-being is U-shaped in age. The paper estimates the dollar values of events like unemployment and divorce. They are large. A lasting marriage (compared to widowhood as a 'natural' experiment), for example, is estimated to be worth $100,000 a year. (C) 2002 Published by Elsevier B.V.