Is it Culture or Democracy? The Impact of Democracy, Income, and Culture on Happiness
University of St. Gallen Economics Working Paper No. 2005-12
40 Pages Posted: 19 Jul 2005
Date Written: June 2005
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 cross-national 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.
Keywords: Culture, democracy, direct democracy, happiness, institutions, utility
JEL Classification: I31, H10, D02
Suggested Citation: Suggested Citation
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