IDEAS home Printed from https://ideas.repec.org/a/ebl/ecbull/eb-19-00742.html
   My bibliography  Save this article

A note on the concavity of the happiness function in family support

Author

Listed:
  • Fernando Bruna

    (Group on Competition and Development and ECOBAS, Department of Economics, Universidade da Coruña)

  • Paolo Rungo

    (Department of Economics, Universidade da Coruña)

Abstract

In the happiness literature, there is an extensive debate about the diminishing marginal utility of income. However, this issue is neglected when considering another critical driver of happiness, social capital, and specifically, family support. The latter has been defended as a possible explanation of the relatively high happiness levels in Latin America. In this note, we present a preliminary comparison of the marginal impact of family support and income on the levels of happiness for Latin Americans and USA citizens. The primary goal is to discuss the possibility of diminishing returns to family support. By using different measures of family support and different models, we find that the marginal effect on happiness of income and family support are higher in the region with lower average endowments of those variables. In addition, the contribution of family support to happiness is systematically higher than the contribution of income. However, the assumption of a non-linear contribution of family support seems not to be crucial to understanding the relative impact of this variable on happiness for the individual with mean support in Latin American and the United States. More research is needed to improve our measures of family support and to understand their effects on happiness.

Suggested Citation

  • Fernando Bruna & Paolo Rungo, 2020. "A note on the concavity of the happiness function in family support," Economics Bulletin, AccessEcon, vol. 40(2), pages 1122-1131.
    • Handle: RePEc:ebl:ecbull:eb-19-00742
    as

    Download full text from publisher

    File URL: http://www.accessecon.com/Pubs/EB/2020/Volume40/EB-20-V40-I2-P97.pdf
    Download Restriction: no
    ---><---

    References listed on IDEAS

    as
    1. Oswald, Andrew J., 2008. "On the curvature of the reporting function from objective reality to subjective feelings," Economics Letters, Elsevier, vol. 100(3), pages 369-372, September.
    2. Li-Hsuan Huang, 2018. "Can Stronger Family Connections Alleviate the Adverse Effects of Unemployment on Happiness? Evidence from Asian Countries," Journal of Reviews on Global Economics, Lifescience Global, vol. 7, pages 225-245.
    3. M. Pittau & Roberto Zelli & Andrew Gelman, 2010. "Economic Disparities and Life Satisfaction in European Regions," Social Indicators Research: An International and Interdisciplinary Journal for Quality-of-Life Measurement, Springer, vol. 96(2), pages 339-361, April.
    4. Sacks, Daniel W. & Stevenson, Betsey & Wolfers, Justin, 2012. "The New Stylized Facts about Income and Subjective Well-Being," IZA Discussion Papers 7105, Institute of Labor Economics (IZA).
    5. Aqib Aslam & Luisa Corrado, 2012. "The geography of well-being," Journal of Economic Geography, Oxford University Press, vol. 12(3), pages 627-649, May.
    6. Ada Ferrer-i-Carbonell & Paul Frijters, 2004. "How Important is Methodology for the estimates of the determinants of Happiness?," Economic Journal, Royal Economic Society, vol. 114(497), pages 641-659, July.
    7. Richard Easterlin, 2005. "Diminishing Marginal Utility of Income? Caveat Emptor," Social Indicators Research: An International and Interdisciplinary Journal for Quality-of-Life Measurement, Springer, vol. 70(3), pages 243-255, February.
    8. Vesarach Aumeboonsuke, 2017. "Parents or peers, wealth or warmth? The impact of social support, wealth, and a positive outlook on self-efficacy and happiness," International Journal of Social Economics, Emerald Group Publishing Limited, vol. 44(6), pages 732-750, June.
    9. Andrew T. Jebb & Louis Tay & Ed Diener & Shigehiro Oishi, 2018. "Happiness, income satiation and turning points around the world," Nature Human Behaviour, Nature, vol. 2(1), pages 33-38, January.
    Full references (including those not matched with items on IDEAS)

    Most related items

    These are the items that most often cite the same works as this one and are cited by the same works as this one.
    1. Isabel Neira & Fernando Bruna & Marta Portela & Adela García-Aracil, 2018. "Individual Well-Being, Geographical Heterogeneity and Social Capital," Journal of Happiness Studies, Springer, vol. 19(4), pages 1067-1090, April.
    2. Artjoms Ivlevs & Michail Veliziotis, 2018. "Local-level immigration and life satisfaction: The EU enlargement experience in England and Wales," Environment and Planning A, , vol. 50(1), pages 175-193, February.
    3. Tobias Pfaff & Johannes Hirata, 2013. "Testing the Easterlin Hypothesis with Panel Data: The Dynamic Relationship between Life Satisfaction and Economic Growth in Germany and the UK," SOEPpapers on Multidisciplinary Panel Data Research 554, DIW Berlin, The German Socio-Economic Panel (SOEP).
    4. Pfaff, Tobias & Hirata, Johannes, 2013. "Testing the Easterlin hypothesis with panel data: The dynamic relationship between life satisfaction and economic growth in Germany and in the UK," CIW Discussion Papers 4/2013, University of Münster, Center for Interdisciplinary Economics (CIW).
    5. Fernando BRUNA & Isabel NEIRA & Marta PORTELA, 2019. "Horizontal And Vertical Contexts On Europeans’ Well-Being," Applied Econometrics and International Development, Euro-American Association of Economic Development, vol. 19(2), pages 37-56.
    6. Isabel Neira & Maricruz Lacalle-Calderon & Marta Portela & Manuel Perez-Trujillo, 2019. "Social Capital Dimensions and Subjective Well-Being: A Quantile Approach," Journal of Happiness Studies, Springer, vol. 20(8), pages 2551-2579, December.
    7. Aloys Prinz & Björn Bünger, "undated". "Living in a material world: Happy Income and Happy Life Years," Working Papers 200116, Institute of Spatial and Housing Economics, Munster Universitary.
    8. Cristina Bernini & Alessandro Tampieri, 2017. "The Happiness Function in Italian Cities," DEM Discussion Paper Series 17-07, Department of Economics at the University of Luxembourg.
    9. Deckers Thomas & Falk Armin & Schildberg-Hörisch Hannah, 2016. "Nominal or Real? The Impact of Regional Price Levels on Satisfaction with Life," The B.E. Journal of Economic Analysis & Policy, De Gruyter, vol. 16(3), pages 1337-1358, September.
    10. Jan Eichhorn, 2013. "Unemployment Needs Context: How Societal Differences between Countries Moderate the Loss in Life-Satisfaction for the Unemployed," Journal of Happiness Studies, Springer, vol. 14(6), pages 1657-1680, December.
    11. Steven J. Bosworth & José Ignacio Gimenez‐Nadal & Almudena Sevilla, 2025. "Parental time investments and instantaneous well‐being in the United States," Scottish Journal of Political Economy, Scottish Economic Society, vol. 72(1), February.
    12. Beja Jr, Edsel, 2013. "Does economic prosperity bring about a happier society? Mathematical remarks on the Easterlin Paradox debate," MPRA Paper 48229, University Library of Munich, Germany.
    13. O'Donnell, Gus & Oswald, Andrew J., 2015. "National well-being policy and a weighted approach to human feelings," Ecological Economics, Elsevier, vol. 120(C), pages 59-70.
    14. Schurer, Stefanie & Yong, Jongsay, 2012. "Personality, well-being and the marginal utility of income: What can we learn from random coefficient models?," Working Paper Series 18617, Victoria University of Wellington, School of Economics and Finance.
    15. Fengyu Wu, 2021. "Modern Economic Growth, Culture, and Subjective Well-Being: Evidence from Arctic Alaska," Journal of Happiness Studies, Springer, vol. 22(6), pages 2621-2651, August.
    16. Kaiser, Caspar, 2018. "People do not adapt to income changes: A re-evaluation of the dynamic effects of (reference) income on life satisfaction with GSOEP and UKHLS data," INET Oxford Working Papers 2018-07, Institute for New Economic Thinking at the Oxford Martin School, University of Oxford.
    17. Kristen Cooper & Mark Fabian & Christian Krekel, 2023. "New approaches to measuring welfare," Fiscal Studies, John Wiley & Sons, vol. 44(2), pages 123-135, June.
    18. Atilano Pena-López & Paolo Rungo & Beatriz López-Bermúdez, 2021. "The "Efficiency" Effect of Conceptual Referents on the Generation of Happiness: A Cross-National Analysis," Journal of Happiness Studies, Springer, vol. 22(6), pages 2457-2483, August.
    19. Stephen Martin, 2019. "The Kaldor–Hicks Potential Compensation Principle and the Constant Marginal Utility of Income," Review of Industrial Organization, Springer;The Industrial Organization Society, vol. 55(3), pages 493-513, November.
    20. Phil Lignier & Diane Jarvis & Daniel Grainger & Taha Chaiechi, 2024. "Spatial Heterogeneity and Subjective Wellbeing: Exploring the Role of Social Capital in Metropolitan Areas Using Multilevel Modelling," Journal of Happiness Studies, Springer, vol. 25(5), pages 1-23, June.

    More about this item

    Keywords

    social capital; family; income; diminishing marginal; utility; returns; income; happiness; well-being; support; Latin America; United States; concavity; social relations; non-linearity; ordinality; ordered logit; trust; health; relationship; religiosity; age;
    All these keywords.

    JEL classification:

    • I3 - Health, Education, and Welfare - - Welfare, Well-Being, and Poverty
    • D1 - Microeconomics - - Household Behavior

    Statistics

    Access and download statistics

    Corrections

    All material on this site has been provided by the respective publishers and authors. You can help correct errors and omissions. When requesting a correction, please mention this item's handle: RePEc:ebl:ecbull:eb-19-00742. See general information about how to correct material in RePEc.

    If you have authored this item and are not yet registered with RePEc, we encourage you to do it here. This allows to link your profile to this item. It also allows you to accept potential citations to this item that we are uncertain about.

    If CitEc recognized a bibliographic reference but did not link an item in RePEc to it, you can help with this form .

    If you know of missing items citing this one, you can help us creating those links by adding the relevant references in the same way as above, for each refering item. If you are a registered author of this item, you may also want to check the "citations" tab in your RePEc Author Service profile, as there may be some citations waiting for confirmation.

    For technical questions regarding this item, or to correct its authors, title, abstract, bibliographic or download information, contact: John P. Conley (email available below). General contact details of provider: .

    Please note that corrections may take a couple of weeks to filter through the various RePEc services.

    IDEAS is a RePEc service. RePEc uses bibliographic data supplied by the respective publishers.