IDEAS home Printed from https://ideas.repec.org/h/elg/eechap/17110_9.html
   My bibliography  Save this book chapter

Economic growth and happiness

In: Managing without Growth, Second Edition

Author

Listed:
  • .

Abstract

There is an extensive body of literature showing the weak relationship between people’s incomes and their self-reported happiness or well-being, especially at higher levels of income. A person’s income relative to others seems to be more important to them than their absolute income level. The lack of correlation between average incomes in the USA and the proportion of Americans who describe themselves as ‘very happy’ is similar to the pattern that comes from a comparison of incomes and the Genuine Progress Indicator (GPI). The GPI was designed to adjust GDP to make it a more valid measure of well-being. HappyGrow, a theoretical simulation model in which goods provide different combinations of status and use, is described. When status is zero sum, economic growth, which brings increasing consumption of status goods, adds little or nothing to overall well-being.

Suggested Citation

  • ., 2019. "Economic growth and happiness," Chapters, in: Managing without Growth, Second Edition, chapter 9, pages 209-240, Edward Elgar Publishing.
    • Handle: RePEc:elg:eechap:17110_9
    as

    Download full text from publisher

    File URL: https://www.elgaronline.com/view/9781785367373.00016.xml
    Download Restriction: no
    ---><---

    Citations

    Citations are extracted by the CitEc Project, subscribe to its RSS feed for this item.
    as


    Cited by:

    1. Karen H. Larwin & Milton Harvey, 2021. "A Second Look at Subjective Wellbeing Using Differential Item Functioning," Journal of Statistical and Econometric Methods, SCIENPRESS Ltd, vol. 10(2), pages 1-2.
    2. Martijn Burger & Martijn Hendriks & Elena Ianchovichina, 2022. "Happy but Unequal: Differences in Subjective Well-Being across Individuals and Space in Colombia," Applied Research in Quality of Life, Springer;International Society for Quality-of-Life Studies, vol. 17(3), pages 1343-1387, June.
    3. Deepika Kandpal & Dibyendu Maiti, 2022. "Social Identity, Local Neighbourhood Effect and Conspicuous Consumption: Evidence From India," Working papers 327, Centre for Development Economics, Delhi School of Economics.
    4. John F. Helliwell, 2022. "Reflections on Measuring and Improving Productivity When Subjective Well-being Is the Objective," International Productivity Monitor, Centre for the Study of Living Standards, vol. 43, pages 81-85, Fall.
    5. Kathleen Ford & Aree Jampaklay & Aphichat Chamratrithirong, 2022. "A Multilevel Longitudinal Study of Individual, Household and Village Factors Associated with Happiness Among Adults in the Southernmost Provinces of Thailand," Applied Research in Quality of Life, Springer;International Society for Quality-of-Life Studies, vol. 17(3), pages 1459-1476, June.
    6. Mario Toledo & Humberto Charles-Leija & Carlos Gustavo Castro & Iván Guerrero & Rosalinda Ballesteros-Valdés, 2022. "The IWH-BEAT Questionnaire Validation," IJERPH, MDPI, vol. 19(6), pages 1-16, March.
    7. Begoña Álvarez, 2022. "The Best Years of Older Europeans’ Lives," Social Indicators Research: An International and Interdisciplinary Journal for Quality-of-Life Measurement, Springer, vol. 160(1), pages 227-260, February.
    8. Jorid Kalseth & Valeria Donisi & Marta Miret & Anna K. Forsman & Johanna Cresswell-Smith, 2022. "Exploring the Association between Welfare State and Mental Wellbeing in Europe: Does Age Matter?," IJERPH, MDPI, vol. 19(17), pages 1-25, September.
    9. Piper, Alan, 2023. "Age and Happiness," MPRA Paper 117556, University Library of Munich, Germany.
    10. Susanne Elsas, 2021. "Causality in the Link between Income and Satisfaction: IV Estimation with Internal Instruments," SOEPpapers on Multidisciplinary Panel Data Research 1143, DIW Berlin, The German Socio-Economic Panel (SOEP).
    11. Tomas Hanell, 2022. "Unmet Aspirations and Urban Malaise," Social Indicators Research: An International and Interdisciplinary Journal for Quality-of-Life Measurement, Springer, vol. 164(1), pages 83-103, November.
    12. Felix FitzRoy & Jim Jin & Michael Nolan, 2023. "Higher tax and less work: reverse “Keep up with the Joneses” and rising inequality," Journal of Economics, Springer, vol. 139(3), pages 177-190, August.
    13. Felix R. FitzRoy & Michael A. Nolan, 2022. "Income Status and Life Satisfaction," Journal of Happiness Studies, Springer, vol. 23(1), pages 233-256, January.
    14. Tinghui Li & Junhao Zhong & Mark Xu, 2019. "Does the Credit Cycle Have an Impact on Happiness?," IJERPH, MDPI, vol. 17(1), pages 1-19, December.
    15. McGuire, Joel & Kaiser, Caspar & Bach-Mortensen, Anders, 2020. "The impact of cash transfers on subjective well-being and mental health in low- and middle- income countries: A systematic review and meta-analysis," SocArXiv ydr54, Center for Open Science.
    16. Chenevier, Randall & Piper, Alan T. & Willis, Craig, 2021. "Migration, crime and life satisfaction in Chile: Pre and post-migration evidence," MPRA Paper 106502, University Library of Munich, Germany.
    17. Joel I. DEICHMANN & Dominique HAUGHTON & Mingfei LI & Heyao WANG, 2022. "Does European Union Membership Result In Quality-Of-Life Convergence?," Regional Science Inquiry, Hellenic Association of Regional Scientists, vol. 0(1), pages 31-46, June.
    18. Junji Kageyama & Kazuma Sato, 2021. "Explaining the U-shaped life satisfaction: dissatisfaction as a driver of behavior," Journal of Bioeconomics, Springer, vol. 23(2), pages 179-202, July.
    19. Guoxin Fu, 2021. "Toward achieving sustainable development goal 3: Determinants, innovations, and reactions from 110 countries with different income levels," Sustainable Development, John Wiley & Sons, Ltd., vol. 29(4), pages 607-623, July.
    20. Burger,Martijn & Hendriks,Martijn & Ianchovichina,Elena, 2022. "Anatomy of Brazil’s Subjective Well-Being : A Tale of Growing Discontent and Polarization in the 2010s," Policy Research Working Paper Series 9924, The World Bank.
    21. Sujarwoto Sujarwoto, 2021. "Does Happiness Pays? A Longitudinal Family Life Survey," Applied Research in Quality of Life, Springer;International Society for Quality-of-Life Studies, vol. 16(2), pages 679-701, April.
    22. Uktam Umurzakov & Shakhnoza Tosheva & Raufhon Salahodjaev, 2023. "Tourism and Sustainable Economic Development: Evidence from Belt and Road Countries," Journal of the Knowledge Economy, Springer;Portland International Center for Management of Engineering and Technology (PICMET), vol. 14(1), pages 503-516, March.
    23. Arjen Schepen & Martijn J. Burger, 2022. "Professional Financial Advice and Subjective Well-Being," Applied Research in Quality of Life, Springer;International Society for Quality-of-Life Studies, vol. 17(5), pages 2967-3004, October.
    24. Jenny Chesters & Jehane Simona & Christian Suter, 2021. "Cross-National Comparison of Age and Period Effects on Levels of Subjective Well-Being in Australia and Switzerland During Volatile Economic Times (2001–2016)," Social Indicators Research: An International and Interdisciplinary Journal for Quality-of-Life Measurement, Springer, vol. 154(1), pages 361-391, February.

    More about this item

    Keywords

    Environment; Politics and Public Policy;

    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:elg:eechap:17110_9. 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.

    We have no bibliographic references for this item. You can help adding them by using 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: Darrel McCalla (email available below). General contact details of provider: http://www.e-elgar.com .

    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.