IDEAS home Printed from https://ideas.repec.org/a/ebl/ecbull/eb-24-00359.html
   My bibliography  Save this article

Infectious happiness in heterogeneous social networks: evidence from rural China

Author

Listed:
  • Hang Fang

    (Anhui Agricultural University)

  • Ting Yu

    (Anhui Agricultural University)

  • Michael S Delgado

    (Purdue University)

  • Qianheng Qian

    (China Agricultural University)

Abstract

We investigate infectious effects in happiness using a novel panel of data from a village in China. We construct a complete and heterogeneous social network that includes all households, and use spatial econometric models to estimate the infectious effect. We find that both infectious and contextual effects within social networks are significant for household happiness. Household happiness is not positively influenced by the happiness of the household's closest family, but rather by others from the social network who are not particularly close to the household. We also provide evidence for envy effects between the closest families.

Suggested Citation

  • Hang Fang & Ting Yu & Michael S Delgado & Qianheng Qian, 2024. "Infectious happiness in heterogeneous social networks: evidence from rural China," Economics Bulletin, AccessEcon, vol. 44(3), pages 1188-1195.
    • Handle: RePEc:ebl:ecbull:eb-24-00359
    as

    Download full text from publisher

    File URL: http://www.accessecon.com/Pubs/EB/2024/Volume44/EB-24-V44-I3-P93.pdf
    Download Restriction: no
    ---><---

    References listed on IDEAS

    as
    1. Semih Tumen & Tugba Zeydanli, 2015. "Is Happiness Contagious? Separating Spillover Externalities from the Group-Level Social Context," Journal of Happiness Studies, Springer, vol. 16(3), pages 719-744, June.
    2. John Knight & Ramani Gunatilaka, 2017. "Is Happiness Infectious?," Scottish Journal of Political Economy, Scottish Economic Society, vol. 64(1), pages 1-24, February.
    3. Ferrer-i-Carbonell, Ada, 2005. "Income and well-being: an empirical analysis of the comparison income effect," Journal of Public Economics, Elsevier, vol. 89(5-6), pages 997-1019, June.
    4. Bramoullé, Yann & Djebbari, Habiba & Fortin, Bernard, 2009. "Identification of peer effects through social networks," Journal of Econometrics, Elsevier, vol. 150(1), pages 41-55, May.
    5. Povey, Richard, 2015. "The welfare economics of infectious happiness," Economics Letters, Elsevier, vol. 133(C), pages 1-3.
    6. Fang, Hang & Chen, Qianheng & Delgado, Michael S. & He, Qinying, 2023. "Peer correlations in income: Evidence from a Guanxi network in rural China," Economics Letters, Elsevier, vol. 222(C).
    7. Charles F. Manski, 1993. "Identification of Endogenous Social Effects: The Reflection Problem," The Review of Economic Studies, Review of Economic Studies Ltd, vol. 60(3), pages 531-542.
    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. Semih Tumen & Tugba Zeydanli, 2016. "Social interactions in job satisfaction," International Journal of Manpower, Emerald Group Publishing Limited, vol. 37(3), pages 426-455, June.
    2. John Knight & Ramani Gunatilaka, 2017. "Is Happiness Infectious?," Scottish Journal of Political Economy, Scottish Economic Society, vol. 64(1), pages 1-24, February.
    3. Semih Tumen & Tugba Zeydanli, 2015. "Is Happiness Contagious? Separating Spillover Externalities from the Group-Level Social Context," Journal of Happiness Studies, Springer, vol. 16(3), pages 719-744, June.
    4. Vitalis, Kyriacos & Stefanidis, Dimosthenis & Pallis, George & Dikaiakos, Marios & Nicolaou, Nicos & Nicolaides, Christos, 2024. "Quantifying the impact of online social networks on the success of entrepreneurs," OSF Preprints x6vda_v1, Center for Open Science.
    5. Li, Kunpeng & Lin, Wei, 2024. "Threshold spatial autoregressive model," Journal of Econometrics, Elsevier, vol. 244(1).
    6. Magnus A. H. Gulbrandsen, 2021. "Peer effects and debt accumulation: Evidence from lottery winnings," Working Paper 2021/10, Norges Bank.
    7. Bet Caeyers, 2014. "Peer effects in development programme awareness of vulnerable groups in rural Tanzania," CSAE Working Paper Series 2014-11, Centre for the Study of African Economies, University of Oxford.
    8. Julie Beugnot & Bernard Fortin & Guy Lacroix & Marie Claire Villeval, 2013. "Social Networks and Peer Effects at Work," Cahiers de recherche 1320, CIRPEE.
    9. Mundt, Philipp, 2021. "The formation of input–output architecture: Evidence from the European Union," Journal of Economic Behavior & Organization, Elsevier, vol. 183(C), pages 89-104.
    10. Yann Algan & Quoc-Anh Do & Nicolò Dalvit & Alexis Le Chapelain & Yves Zenou, 2015. "How Social Networks Shape Our Beliefs: A Natural Experiment among Future French Politicians," Working Papers hal-03459820, HAL.
    11. Jin, Jiashun & Ke, Zheng Tracy & Luo, Shengming, 2024. "Mixed membership estimation for social networks," Journal of Econometrics, Elsevier, vol. 239(2).
    12. repec:spo:wpmain:info:hdl:2441/78vacv4udu92eq3fec89svm9uv is not listed on IDEAS
    13. Bonan, Jacopo & Battiston, Pietro & Bleck, Jaimie & LeMay-Boucher, Philippe & Pareglio, Stefano & Sarr, Bassirou & Tavoni, Massimo, 2021. "Social interaction and technology adoption: Experimental evidence from improved cookstoves in Mali," World Development, Elsevier, vol. 144(C).
    14. Bolletta, Ugo, 2021. "A model of peer effects in school," Mathematical Social Sciences, Elsevier, vol. 114(C), pages 1-10.
    15. Atella, Vincenzo & Belotti, Federico & Depalo, Domenico & Piano Mortari, Andrea, 2014. "Measuring spatial effects in the presence of institutional constraints: The case of Italian Local Health Authority expenditure," Regional Science and Urban Economics, Elsevier, vol. 49(C), pages 232-241.
    16. Nicoletta Balbo & Francesco C. Billari & Melinda Mills, 2013. "Fertility in Advanced Societies: A Review of Research," European Journal of Population, Springer;European Association for Population Studies, vol. 29(1), pages 1-38, February.
    17. Yann Bramoullé & Bernard Fortin, 2009. "The Econometrics of Social Networks," Cahiers de recherche 0913, CIRPEE.
    18. Chih‐Sheng Hsieh & Lung‐Fei Lee & Vincent Boucher, 2020. "Specification and estimation of network formation and network interaction models with the exponential probability distribution," Quantitative Economics, Econometric Society, vol. 11(4), pages 1349-1390, November.
    19. Andrew T. Young & Matthew J. Higgins & Donald J. Lacombe & Briana Sell, 2014. "The Direct and Indirect Effects of Small Business Administration Lending on Growth: Evidence from U.S. County-Level Data," NBER Working Papers 20543, National Bureau of Economic Research, Inc.
    20. Michael D. König & Xiaodong Liu & Yves Zenou, 2019. "R&D Networks: Theory, Empirics, and Policy Implications," The Review of Economics and Statistics, MIT Press, vol. 101(3), pages 476-491, July.
    21. Alejandra Agustina Martínez, 2023. "Raise your Voice! Activism and Peer Effects in Online Social Networks," Working Papers 277, Red Nacional de Investigadores en Economía (RedNIE).

    More about this item

    Keywords

    Happiness; Infectious Effects; Social Network; China;
    All these keywords.

    JEL classification:

    • D9 - Microeconomics - - Micro-Based Behavioral Economics
    • Z1 - Other Special Topics - - Cultural Economics

    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-24-00359. 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.