Is It Culture or Democracy? The Impact of Democracy, Income, and Culture on Happiness
Type
discussion paper
Date Issued
2005-06-01
Author(s)
Abstract
We look at the relation between democracy and perceived subjective well-being, taking also into account the impact of income and culture. After briefly reviewing the empirical results for Switzerland, we re-estimate this relationship allowing for the relative income position of individuals and also using a new more recent data from the Swiss Household Panel. No robust relationship between the extent of (direct) democracy and happiness can be observed. In a second step, we conduct a crossnational analysis, covering 28 countries with data from the 1998 International Social Survey Programme (ISSP). There we observe a robust positive and significant relationship between democracy and happiness.
Language
English
Keywords
Culture
Democracy
Direct Democracy
Happiness
Institutions
Utility
HSG Classification
not classified
Refereed
No
Number
2005-12
Subject(s)
Eprints ID
58226
File(s)![Thumbnail Image]()
Name
DP-12_Ki_Culture or Democracy.pdf
Size
236.56 KB
Format
Adobe PDF
Checksum (MD5)
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