خلاصة:
This paper examines factors affecting happiness using panel data concerning 58 countries during 2003-2011. Happiness data come in the form of answers to questions such as "How happy are you as a whole in your life?" and the answers range from 1 to 5transformed to obtain a 1-10 scale. Macroeconomics data are from MIT and World Bank 2012 tables. Including 215 total pool observations indicate the negative and significant effect for Inflation and Unemployment while positive and significant for Growth of GDP Per Capita and the Government Expenditure.
Controlling these variables Islamic countries are relatively less happy.
ملخص الجهاز:
Including 215 total pool observations indicate the negative and significant effect for Inflation and Unemployment while positive and significant for Growth of GDP Per Capita and the Government Expenditure.
In particular, the question is how economic growth, unemployment, and inflation, as well as trade, government expenditure and other factors affect Individual Happiness.
This research therefore aims to examine the happiness index in a group of selected countries with available data, focusing on macroeconomics variables as affecting factors of happiness.
The empirical study of Frey and Stutzer (2000; 918)based on the survey results of more than 6,000 residents of Switzerland for the year 1992 indicated that, unemployment has a strongly depressing effect on happiness and a higher income level raises happiness, however, only to a small extent.
Di Tella andMacCulloch (2005; 367)estimated the effect of inflation and unemployment on social happiness and have found that, the probability that an individual reports a high level of happiness is negatively correlated with inflation and unemployment, even after controlling for personal characteristics of the respondents, country and year dummies and country-specific time trends.
The main hypothesis of the paper is that economic variables such as Unemployment rate, Inflation rate, Government Expenditure and GDP Per Capita Growth are the factors that can affect the overall happiness.
The results based on annual cross-country panel data including 58 countries for the period of 2003-2011 including 215 total pool observations indicate the negative and significant coefficients for Inflation and Unemployment while positive and significant for Growth of GDP Per Capita and the Government Expenditure.