Do People Become Healthier after Being Promoted?

This paper uses longitudinal data to explore whether greater job status makes a person healthier. Taking the evidence as a whole, promotees do not exhibit a health improvement after promotion. Instead the data suggest that workers with good health are more likely to be promoted. In the private sector, we find that job promotion significantly worsens people's psychological strain (on a GHQ score). For the public sector, there are some tentative signs of the reverse. We discuss caveats to our conclusions, suggest caution in their interpretation, and argue that further longitudinal studies are needed.health, Whitehall studies, GHQ, locus of control, job satisfaction, mortality, status

Income Rank and Upward Comparisons

Many studies have argued that relative income predicts individual well-being. More recently, it has been suggested that the relative rank of an individual’s income, rather than how that income compares to a mean or reference income, is important. Here the relative rank hypothesis is examined along with the additional hypothesis that individuals compare their incomes predominantly with those of slightly higher earners. A study of over 12,000 British adults using the British Household Panel Survey (a) confirms the importance of rank and (b) finds evidence that individuals compare upwards and to those most similar. This paper appears to be the first to show in fixed effect well-being equations that the influence of rank is more important than the influence of relative pay.Rank ; social comparison ; life satisfaction ; relative income ; BHPS

However you spend it, money isn’t the key to happiness

The question as to whether more money brings greater happiness comes up time and time again and will no doubt continue to do so. Studies have shown that money matters much less than people assume and some conclude this is because we aren’t spending it right. Christopher Boyce accepts this argument may have some value, but emphasises money is unimportant compared to other factors at raising individual wellbeing

Happiness may be a choice – except that it’s constrained by vested economic interests

First paragraph: Our knowledge about what it is that people need to feel happy and satisfied with in their lives keeps growing, yet the extent to which people actually feel happy and satisfied with their lives has largely stagnated. There might be small shifts each year that may enable one country to claim it is “happier” than another, but these shifts rest on narrow definitions of happiness and are rarely the result of government policies that would warrant any real celebration.https://theconversation.com/happiness-may-be-a-choice-except-that-its-constrained-by-vested-economic-interests-11843

Why I quit my day job researching happiness and started cycling to Bhutan

First paragraph: I'd had enough. It was October 2017, and I’d been wondering what the point of my job was for far too long, and while I’m sure there was something meaningful somewhere and to someone in what I was doing day-to-day, it had certainly lost meaning for me. For all the good that writing another academic research paper would do, I thought I might as well be cycling to Bhutan.https://theconversation.com/why-i-quit-my-day-job-researching-happiness-and-started-cycling-to-bhutan-10553

An interest rate rise may put thousands at risk of mental health problems

First paragraph: After nine years of interest rates below 1%, it seems imminent that the Bank of England will announce a rise before long. As pay growth picks up and inflation hits its 2% target, a rate rise would – it is argued – ward off potential risks of inflation in the medium term. But another factor to bear in mind is that a rate rise could also have serious repercussions for people’s mental health. A large portion of the UK population have high, possibly unsustainable, levels of debt and a higher interest rate is likely to increase the burden of repaying some of that debt. It will therefore likely increase their levels of mental distress

Can Money Change Who We Are? Estimating the Effects of Unearned Income on Measures of Incentive-Enhancing Personality Traits

The importance of noncognitive childhood skills in predicting higher wages is well documented in economics. This paper studies the reverse. Using surveys of lottery winners, we analyze the effects of unearned income on the Big Five personality traits. After correcting for potential endogeneity problems from prize sizes, we find that unearned income improves traits that predict pro-social and cooperative behaviors, preferences for social contact, empathy, and gregariousness, and reduces individuals' tendency toward negative emotional states: known in economics literature as incentive-enhancing personality traits. Our results support the possibility of scope for later interventions to improve the personality traits of adults.noncognitive skills, personality traits, lottery winners, instrumental variables, unearned income

Tracing organic matter composition and distribution and its role on arsenic release in shallow Cambodian groundwaters

Biogeochemical processes that utilize dissolved organic carbon are widely thought to be responsible for the liberation of arsenic from sediments to shallow groundwater in south and southeast Asia. The accumulation of this known carcinogen to hazardously high concentrations has occurred in the primary source of drinking water in large parts of densely populated countries in this region. Both surface and sedimentary sources of organic matter have been suggested to contribute dissolved organic carbon in these aquifers. However, identification of the source of organic carbon responsible for driving arsenic release remains enigmatic and even controversial. Here, we provide the most extensive interrogation to date of the isotopic signature of ground and surface waters at a known arsenic hotspot in Cambodia. We present tritium and radiocarbon data that demonstrates that recharge through ponds and/or clay windows can transport young, surface derived organic matter in to groundwater to depths of 44 m under natural flow conditions. Young organic matter dominates the dissolved organic carbon pool in groundwater that is in close proximity to these surface water sources and we suggest this is likely a regional relationship. In locations distal to surface water contact, dissolved organic carbon represents a mixture of both young surface and older sedimentary derived organic matter. Ground-surface water interaction therefore strongly influences the average dissolved organic carbon age and how this is distributed spatially across the field site. Arsenic mobilization rates appear to be controlled by the age of dissolved organic matter present in these groundwaters. Arsenic concentrations in shallow groundwaters (< 20 m) increase by 1 μg/l for every year increase in dissolved organic carbon age compared to only 0.25 μg/l for every year increase in dissolved organic carbon age in deeper (> 20 m) groundwaters. We suggest that, while the rate of arsenic release is greatest in shallow aquifer sediments, arsenic release also occurs in deeper aquifer sediments and as such remains an important process in controlling the spatial distribution of arsenic in the groundwaters of SE Asia. Our findings suggest that any anthropogenic activities that alter the source of groundwater recharge or the timescales over which recharge takes place may also drive changes in the natural composition of dissolved organic carbon in these groundwaters. Such changes have the potential to influence both the spatial and temporal evolution of the current groundwater arsenic hazard in this region

Money and happiness : rank of income, not income, affects life satisfaction

Does money buy happiness, or does happiness come indirectly from the higher rank in society that money brings? Here we test a rank hypothesis, according to which people gain utility from the ranked position of their income within a comparison group. The rank hypothesis contrasts with traditional reference income hypotheses, which suggest utility from income depends on comparison to a social group reference norm. We find that the ranked position of an individual’s income predicts general life satisfaction, while absolute income and reference income have no effect. Furthermore, individuals weight upward comparisons more than downward comparisons. According to the rank hypothesis, income and utility are not directly linked: Increasing an individual’s income will only increase their utility if ranked position also increases and will necessarily reduce the utility of others who will lose rank

Money or mental health : the cost of alleviating psychological distress with monetary compensation versus psychological therapy

Money is the default way in which intangible losses, such as pain and suffering, are currently valued and compensated in law courts. Economists have suggested that subjective well-being regressions can be used to guide compensation payouts for psychological distress following traumatic life events. We bring together studies from law, economic, psychology and medical journals to show that alleviating psychological distress through psychological therapy could be at least 32 times more cost effective than financial compensation. This result is not only important for law courts but has important implications for public health. Mental health is deteriorating across the world – improvements to mental health care might be a more efficient way to increase the health and happiness of our nations than pure income growth