Does economic development and democracy translate to happiness? a global perspective

This paper explores the relatively intriguing area of research on the “economics of happiness”. The present study was designed to determine the effects of economic development and democratic freedom on happiness. A cross-sectional econometric analysis is employed to examine the impact of the economic variables of income and democracy on happiness across thirty eight countries in 2011. Democracy and economic development were found to contribute positively to happiness. The findings also indicate a bi-directional relationship between happiness and its dual determinants of income and democratic freedom. It was found that countries reporting higher levels of well-being tend to enjoy higher incomes and seem to choose democracy over other political overtures. Institutions of democracy were found to enhance economic development and this relationship is bi-directional. The study concludes with an examination of policy implications of the findings

International evidence on the economics of happiness and its impact on nation growth and fertility

Recent literature on developed countries have shown evidence that, despite enjoying rapid growth and higher levels of material well-being, the people in these countries do not necessarily enjoy higher levels of happiness. In fact, there appears to be a declining trend in the levels of happiness among the majority, and this is believed to be related to an increase in stress-related illnesses that could bring about a decline in productivity, reductions in fertility rates; a decline in social trust, a rise in suicide rates, an unprecedented increase in crime rates and a rapid degradation of the environment. Further investigations must be carried out to determine what enables or hinders happiness, so that nations can make informed policy decisions that are necessary to ensure sustainable economic development takes place, while improving mankind’s happiness. This study examined the economic determinants of happiness and its impact on economic growth and fertility, based on the Set-Point, Cognitive and Affective theories of happiness. The study employed two methodologies to achieve its objectives. For the first objective, the study employed the pooled mean group estimator (PMG) to estimate the dynamic heterogeneous panel model involving ten countries with data spanning from 1973 to 2012, while the generalised-method-of-moments (GMM) estimators was utilised for the second and third objectives of this study involving fifty countries for the period 2000 to 2012. The results reveal that happiness had a positive long run relationship with income, unemployment, carbon emission, and education; a negative long run relationship with inflation and income inequality, while institutional quality was not significant in explaining happiness. For the second objective on the impact of happiness on economic growth, it was found that happiness had a significant and positive impact on economic growth, while the results of the third objective on the impact of happiness on fertility showed that while happiness had a significantly positive impact on fertility, happiness-squared was found to significantly cause fertility to decline, revealing the existence of an “inverted U” relationship. This study recommends the use of happiness-centred approaches to policy making in aiding policy makers in planning and implementing policies, by taking into account the subjective well-being of its people, aside from focusing on the extrinsic aspect of the economy, when considering economic growt

The Effect of Stress Factors On the Reading Habits among Gen-Y students

The complexity in teaching the generation Y students is a challenge faced by academics in many higher institutions. This includes the evolution from conventional reading to reading using the ever expanding web based resources. This quantitative study was undertaken to examine the relationship between stress factors and reading habits among Gen Y students. The purpose of this study is to identify the type of stress which affects Gen Y students, the effect of these stress factors on the Gen Y reading habits and the moderating effect of gender on the relationship between stress factors and reading habits. The data was collected from 206 business students in a private higher institution of education using a structured questionnaire after a prior pilot test of 76 samples. The data was analyzed using reliability, factor analysis, and multivariate General Linear Model. The use of factor analysis identified four constructs for readership and two constructs for stress factors. An association between stress factors and reading habits was established. It was discovered that stress affected the knowledge and the exam purpose readers. Further investigation showed that gender moderates the effect of stress on the Gen Y reading habits. These findings will be of value to educators as they seek a better understanding of the needs and priorities of the millennial students. It is hoped that these findings will enable educators to establish a good understanding of the Gen Y students and their distinct needs so as to promote the use of more innovative teaching methodologies to further encourage a healthier learning environment

An exploratory study of the impact of income, health expenditure and pollution on happiness: a global perspective

There has been a tremendous growth in the number of empirical research on happiness by economists in the past decade. The present study is in the right direction as it explores a relatively intriguing area of research on the “economics of happiness”. The purpose of this study is to find the existence of linkages between happiness and several economic variables. A cross-sectional econometric analysis is employed to examine the impact of the economic variables of income (Gross Domestic Product per capita), health care expenditure and pollution (proxies by CO2 emissions) on happiness across 42 countries in 2006. The findings indicate that a significantly positive relationship exists between happiness and income while pollution has a negative impact on a nation’s wellbeing. The level of health care expenditure however, does not have a significant impact on happiness. The study concludes with an examination of policy implications of the findings

Time series analysis of the impact of consumption and energy use on environmental degradation: evidence from Malaysia

This study uses time-series analysis to investigate the long-run relationships and short-run dynamic interactions between environmental degradation (proxied by CO2 emissions) and the independent variables of consumption (proxied by income level or Gross Domestic Product per capita) and energy consumption in Malaysia over the period 1971 to 2008. The study applies the multivariate cointegration methodology to establish the possible causal relations between these variables. The cointegration test and the vector error correction model demonstrate the evidence of a positive long-run relationship between consumption and environmental degradation while energy consumption is negatively related to environmental degradation. The long-term elasticity coefficients of the independent variables on environmental degradation display relationships that are theoretically grounded. Further innovations analysis using variance decompositions lends evidence of the dominant influence of consumption and energy consumption in forecasting environmental degradation variance. The study concludes with an examination of policy implications of the findings