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Measuring National Life Satisfaction with Music

Author

Listed:
  • Benetos, Emmanouil

    (Queen Mary, University of London)

  • Ragano, Alessandro

    (The Alan Turing Institute)

  • Sgroi, Daniel

    (University of Warwick)

  • Tuckwell, Anthony

    (University of Warwick)

Abstract

National life satisfaction is an important way to measure societal well-being and since 2011 has been used to judge the effectiveness of government policy across the world. However, there is a paucity of historical data making limiting long-run comparisons with other data. We construct a new measure based on the emotional content of music. We first trained a machine learning model using 191 different audio features embedded within music and use this model to construct a long-run Music Valence Index derived from chart-topping songs. This index correlates strongly and significantly with survey-based life satisfaction and outperforms an equivalent text-based measure. Our results have implications for the role of music in society, and validate a new use of music as a long-run measure of public sentiment.

Suggested Citation

  • Benetos, Emmanouil & Ragano, Alessandro & Sgroi, Daniel & Tuckwell, Anthony, 2021. "Measuring National Life Satisfaction with Music," IZA Discussion Papers 14258, Institute of Labor Economics (IZA).
    • Handle: RePEc:iza:izadps:dp14258
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    More about this item

    Keywords

    historical subjective wellbeing; life satisfaction; music; sound data; language; big data;
    All these keywords.

    JEL classification:

    • C8 - Mathematical and Quantitative Methods - - Data Collection and Data Estimation Methodology; Computer Programs
    • N3 - Economic History - - Labor and Consumers, Demography, Education, Health, Welfare, Income, Wealth, Religion, and Philanthropy
    • N4 - Economic History - - Government, War, Law, International Relations, and Regulation
    • O1 - Economic Development, Innovation, Technological Change, and Growth - - Economic Development
    • D6 - Microeconomics - - Welfare Economics

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