Subjective Well-Being: Revisions to Dynamic Equilibrium Theory using National Panel Data and Panel Regression Methods

This paper partly revises the dynamic equilibrium (DE) theory of subjective well-being (SWB), sometimes termed set point theory. Results from four national panel surveys show that correlations among measures of SWB diminish over time, and that the SWB set points of a minority of individuals substantially change. These results mean that DE theory requires revision to make it more dynamic and enable it to better account for medium term change in SWB. The paper identifies personality traits and life events associated with subsequent changes in SWB. Data come from German, British and Australian panel surveys in which SWB has been measured for between 9 and 20 years. Panel regression random and fixed effects models were used to analyse the data.     

Multidimensional Analysis of Deprivation and Fragility Patterns of Migrants in Lombardy,Using Partially Ordered Sets and Self-Organizing Maps

Social Indicators Research - In this paper, we present a multidimensional fuzzy analysis of the levels and the patterns of poverty and social fragility of migrants’ families, in the Italian...     

Measuring Household Wealth with Latent Trait Modelling: An Application to Malawian DHS Data

Public perceptions of crime and victimisation can influence an individual’s subjective well-being. Research into the impact of the fear of crime and victimisation on subjective well-being, however, has been limited; particularly with respect to the relative contributions of real versus perceived crime towards an individual’s self-reported life satisfaction. Improving our understanding of the relationship between crime and well-being is important, as public resources assigned to reducing or controlling crime could be assigned to addressing other social concerns. This paper extends the literature by exploring the contribution of real and perceived crime in an individual’s local area to their self-reported life satisfaction. Our results indicate that: (1) individuals’ perceptions of crime in their local area are far greater than actual levels of crime; (2) the gap between perceived and real crime is widening as real crime rates fall faster than the perceived rate of crime; (3) real crime rates detract more from an individual’s self-reported life satisfaction than perceived rates of crime; however, (4) perceived rates of crime have an adverse impact on life satisfaction beyond those associated with real crime; and (5) there is significant heterogeneity in the life satisfaction effects of real and perceived crime among groups of individuals. These results, together with empirical evidence highlighting successful strategies for moderating perceptions of crime, facilitate the development of more informed public policy that will improve individual life satisfaction and, ultimately, community well-being.     

Childhood and Capability Deprivation in Germany: A Quantitative Analysis Using German Socio-Economic Panel Data

Child poverty has been widely discussed in Germany since the publication of the third official Poverty and Wealth Report of the German government in 2008 which—inter alia—focused on the situation of children and families. However, child poverty is not only caused by low household incomes and impacts of child poverty are not only restricted to financial consequences. The capability approach takes into account this multidimensionality of well-being and poverty of children. It conceptualizes human well-being as not only depending on financial means but also gives the same importance to the personal and social conversion factors which determine how far financial means can be converted into personal well-being. Before 2008 the capability approach had only been applied to the well-being of adults in Germany, but not specifically to the well-being of children. However, there are several reasons why a capability analysis for children will differ from a capability analysis for adults. Adults’ capability sets comprise dimensions that are less relevant for small children while other valuable capabilities have to be added. Furthermore the capability set depends to a large extent on the age of the child. The paper focuses on a multidimensional poverty analysis in the capability perspective of 5–6 years old children. In the domains of “Education/Leisure”, “Health”, “Social Participation” and “Income” child poverty is measured by predefined indicators. The relationship to the social and personal conversion factors of the caretakers is then evaluated. Additionally, a multidimensional poverty measure is analyzed.     

Panel Quantile Regressions and the Subjective Well-Being in Urban China: Evidence from RUMiC Data

Using RUMiC data and a simple panel quantile regression method, this paper accounts for the time-invariant individual specific characteristics and investigates the heterogeneous effects of factors on the distribution of subjective well-being (SWB, measured by GHQ-12) in urban China. Comparing results from the pooled regression and fixed effect regression, we find that most results from pooled regressions are likely overestimated. Panel quantile regression results show that income affects the least happy 10 % group twice as much as the happiest 10 % people. Being unemployed brings down the happiness level by 0.97 points on average, but individuals with high SWB seem to be not significantly affected. The complete picture of the relationship between SWB and various factors would have been veiled without using quantile techniques. This paper therefore not only contributes to the happiness literature in China, but also adds evidence to stylized findings going beyond the average.     

Direct Versus Indirect Questioning: An Application to the Well-Being of Farm Animals

Recent events suggest people are increasingly concerned not just with their own well-being but that of animals as well. However, there is little systematic evidence on people’s willingness-to-trade their own well-being and quality of life for improvements in the well-being of farm animals. In this paper, we utilize a straightforward and unobtrusive technique to mitigate socially desirability effects and gage the publics’ opinion about farm animal welfare: indirect questioning. In survey of United States households, we find sharp differences between direct and indirect questions related to farm animal welfare. For example, whereas only 15.6% of the public said they think low meat prices are more important than the well-being of farm animals, 67.5% said the average American thinks low meat prices are more important than the well-being of farm animals. This finding, coupled with the extant literature on indirect questioning, suggests that people’s concerns for farm animal welfare are actually much lower than what they say they are.     

Estimating Effectiveness of the Control of Violence and Socioeconomic Development in Colombia: An Application of Dynamic Data Envelopment Analysis and Data Panel Approach

This paper develops an index to evaluate the level of effectiveness of the control of violence based on the data envelopment analysis approach. The index is used to examine the grade of effectiveness of the control of violence at the level of Colombian departments between 1993 and 2007. Comparing the results across Colombian departments, we find that the majority of departments show improvement in their scores of effectiveness. A second stage of the regression model reveals that departments with a higher gross domestic product and higher education and employment are more effective in the control of violence, whereas departments with higher political violence, unemployment rates, unsatisfied basic needs, a displaced population, and hectares cultivated with coca show lower effectiveness in the control of violence. All these findings are of particular interest in the formulation and development of policies against violence, taking into account that organised forms of violence, such as drug trafficking, impede the adequate effectiveness of its control. Moreover, violence decreases social investments, generating alterations in social services that produce long-run deterioration in faith in the government’s ability to govern, which should become an incentive to further violence.     

Values,Performance and Subjective Well-Being in the Sustainability Movement: An Elaboration of Multiple Discrepancies Theory

Building on multiple discrepancies theory (MDT) as developed by Michalos (1985, 1991), the present study seeks to extend the application of MDT by operationalizing multiple discrepancies or “gaps” between values and performance for a representative group from the sustainability movement (back-to-the-landers), and then comparing the ability of the operationalized discrepancies, in competition with a series of demographic and process variables, to explain variance in a set of subjective well-being (SWB) measures. In the analysis of variance (ANOVA) and zero-order correlation equations, the value-performance discrepancies demonstrate consistent statistically significant relationships with the SWB measures. In the multiple regression models, however, the gap variables are not as prominent as other process variables, although they do add variance to SWB, validating the general utility of MDT. It appears, though, that there are other dimensions, many of them specific to the back-to-the-land way of life, that can compensate for the discrepancies between values and performance.     

人口结构、房价对中国居民储蓄率的影响研究——基于代际交叠模型和我国省际面板的分析

本文基于生命周期理论,构建了代表性家庭的效用函数,基于效用最大化,理论上得出少儿抚养比和老年抚养比与储蓄率呈反向变化,房价与储蓄率呈同向变化,具体机制是由于少儿抚养比上升和老年抚养比上升会导致家庭中的处于劳动年龄阶段的父母储蓄变少,由于父母有利他行为会为下一代买房而储蓄,从而推导出房价与储蓄率呈同向变化,然后运用2000~2014年中国省际面板数据构建动态面板方程,运用两步差分GMM方法得出具体的影响.     

人力资本与亲贫式增长——基于省际面板数据实证研究

通过面板数据模型,对2001—2009年我国人力资本与亲贫式增长论题进行实证研究,结果表明:在总体上,人力资本具有较强的减贫效应,但存在区域差异。具体而言,东部地区的人力资本减贫效应大于中西部地区。因此,基于区域视角,通过发展教育促进贫困人口的人力资本积累,增加其就业机会,提高其收入水平,达到脱贫的目的。     

空气污染与公共健康:基于省际面板数据的实证研究

文章在Grossman提出的健康生产函数基础上引入空气污染因素并以烟粉尘排放量作为代理变量,采用2000²015年的省际面板数据实证分析空气污染对居民公共健康的影响。研究发现烟粉尘排放造成的大气颗粒物污染对我国居民公共健康的损害非常显著,当加入经济发展、公共卫生和环保绿化等因素后其影响程度出现明显减弱,经济发展和公共服务水平的提高有助于降低空气污染对居民的健康损害风险,这也是污染导致的健康损害风险省区间存在显著差异的重要原因。模型检验结果显示,公共医疗卫生支出对空气污染造成的健康损害风险的抑制作用呈现倒U型变化特征且拐点值较大,当前各省区公共卫生财政支出水平对居民因空气污染造成健康损害风险的抑制作用尚不明显,这主要与我国医疗卫生体系不完善和公共卫生服务的结构效应密切相关。公共卫生支出的拐点效应也表明居民自身为空气污染造成的健康损害承担更多的医疗卫生成本,这无疑对落后地区和贫困群体造成更大的经济负担,不利于实现空气污染治理的公平。今后应严格控制烟粉尘排放,提高公共医疗卫生和环保绿化设施等公共服务水平,有效降低居民暴露概率和污染带来的健康风险。     

Points System:An Universal Beneficial System with Multiple Objectives of Reform on Household Registration System

Reform of China's Household Registration system(HRS) has been entering a new stage and deserves us to research.The paper argues that reform of HRS should have multiple objectives.It examines various local efforts and practices of the reform and claims that the point system is one of the most feasible alternative systems for the HRS that can fit those multiple reform objectives.The system could also be treated as the new institutional basic for public welfare provision and rights allocation,and a new governance means for population issues as well in China's transitional period.     

Demographic Dynamics and Per Capita Environmental Impact: Using Panel Regressions and Household Decompositions to Examine Population and Transport

This paper examines how demographic changes can help explain changes/differences in personal transport using both International Energy Agency country panel regressions and decompositions of U.S. household data. An environmental Kuznets curve for per capita road energy use was rejected; instead, the relationship between income and road energy was found to be monotonic. The ideas that more densely populated countries have less personal transport demands, the young drive more, and smaller households mean higher per capita driving were confirmed. The household decompositions indicated that changes in demand were more important than compositional changes; yet, during some periods the compositional change component was considerable.     

Estimating Increment-Decrement Life Tables with Multiple Covariates from Panel Data: The Case of Active Life Expectancy*

A fundamental limitation of current multistate life table methodology-evident in recent estimates of active life expectancy for the elderly-is the inability to estimate tables from data on small longitudinal panels in the presence of multiple covariates (such as sex, race, and socioeconomic status). This paper presents an approach to such an estimation based on an isomorphism between the structure of the stochastic model underlying a conventional specification of the increment-decrement life table and that of Markov panel regression models for simple state spaces. We argue that Markov panel regression procedures can be used to provide smoothed or graduated group-specific estimates of transition probabilities that are more stable across short age intervals than those computed directly from sample data. We then join these estimates with increment-decrement life table methods to compute group-specific total, active, and dependent life expectancy estimates. To illustrate the methods, we describe an empirical application to the estimation of such life expectancies specific to sex, race, and education (years of school completed) for a longitudinal panel of elderly persons. We find that education extends both total life expectancy and active life expectancy. Education thus may serve as a powerful social protective mechanism delaying the onset of health problems at older ages.     

Using Household Survey Data to Measure Educational Performance: The Case of Ghana

This paper shows how household data collected for the Ghana Living Standards Survey can be used to calculate national trends in educational performance (enrolment, completion rates and literacy). The resulting enrolment figures are shown to be more reliable than the rather different picture given by offcial statistics. In addition, a short English test conducted alongside the household survey in 1988 and repeated in 2003 gives a direct measure of changes in literacy.     

中国老年人储蓄对家庭消费的影响 ——基于CHARLS面板数据的分析

在我国快速老龄化和居民储蓄率居高不下的背景下,结合老年人储蓄偏好和消费特点,构建家庭消费计量分析模型,文章利用CHARLS2011、2013、2015年微观跟踪调查数据,采用工具变量—随机效应模型划分年龄层次和消费类别逐级估计,重点考察老年人储蓄对其家庭消费的影响。研究表明,老年人储蓄水平越高,对家庭消费的促进能力就越强;分城乡来看,农村老年人储蓄对家庭消费的贡献更大;按年龄组别来看,中、低龄老年人储蓄对家庭消费的影响显著,高龄老年人储蓄对家庭消费的影响不显著;按消费类别看,老年人储蓄偏重于家庭基本生活、教育文化、健康等刚性消费支出,城镇和农村老年人储蓄对不同消费类别影响的差异主要表现在日常支出、医疗保健和耐用消费品等方面。此外,研究还发现,老年人拥有房产对家庭消费具有非常明显的提振作用,家庭收入和老年人借贷对家庭消费的贡献显著。     

人口结构、城镇化与碳排放——基于跨国面板数据的实证研究

文章基于美国、中国、日本、英国等9国1961～2010年的面板数据对人口年龄结构、城镇化与碳排放之间的关系进行实证分析。结果表明,人口规模、人均GDP、二氧化碳排放强度、化石能源占能源消费总量的比重及人口结构与全球碳排放显著相关。此外,人口城镇化率与碳排放的关系呈倒U形,即在人口城镇化的早期会促进二氧化碳的排放,但随着城镇化的进一步扩大则会抑制碳排放;而人口的年龄结构,尤其是人口的老龄化程度对碳排放量的影响则具有U形的特点,即在人口老化的初期由于老年人群的消费模式会减少碳排放,但当人口老龄化进一步加剧后,老年人对医疗护理等方面的需求增多,以致需要更多的经济活动支持这部分开支,因而会造成碳排放的增加。     

Exploring Wider Well-Being in the EU-15 Countries: An Empirical Application of the Stiglitz Report

We draw on the recommendations of the Stiglitz Report to select a set of economic and social variables that can be used to make cross-country comparisons of wider well-being. Using data for the EU-15 countries for 1999 and 2005, we show how three-way analysis can be used to extract synthetic information from a large data set to determine the main latent explanatory factors. In our case, we identify one dominant factor that we term the development profile, which is positively associated with the level of education outputs, technological progress and female labour market participation and negatively associated with the level of pollution. We rank the countries according to this factor and compare these rankings with simpler GDP comparisons and find that the two rankings are only weakly correlated.