http://andrewnorton.info/2007/09/can-economic-growth-reduce-life-satisfaction/ Observations from Carlton's Lone Classical Liberal Fri, 05 Dec 2008 00:37:39 +0000 http://wordpress.org/?v=2.5.1 http://andrewnorton.info/2007/09/can-economic-growth-reduce-life-satisfaction/#comment-9313 Andrew Leigh Wed, 05 Sep 2007 11:55:51 +0000 http://andrewnorton.info/blog/2007/09/05/can-economic-growth-reduce-life-satisfaction/#comment-9313 Andrew, I agree with you that the economic growth finding is weird. But the finding that life satisfaction continues to rise with incomes even for developed countries is consistent with other studies (eg. Di Tella et al). Moreover, the phrasing of the happiness question isn't really all that odd. If you look at Veenhoven's happiness database, it pops up as one of the common ways to ask people about life sat. My guess is that in this case, they chose that question because it's more readily translatable into different languages, where the word "happy" might have slightly different conotations. Andrew, I agree with you that the economic growth finding is weird. But the finding that life satisfaction continues to rise with incomes even for developed countries is consistent with other studies (eg. Di Tella et al).
Moreover, the phrasing of the happiness question isn’t really all that odd. If you look at Veenhoven’s happiness database, it pops up as one of the common ways to ask people about life sat. My guess is that in this case, they chose that question because it’s more readily translatable into different languages, where the word “happy” might have slightly different conotations.

]]>