Arbeitspapier

On the relation between income inequality and happiness: Do fairness perceptions matter?

In this paper, we revisit the association between happiness and inequality. We argue that the perceived fairness of the income generation process affects this association. Building on a two-period model of individual life-time utility maximization, we predict that persons with higher perceived fairness will experience higher levels of life-time utility and are less in favor of income redistribution. In societies with a high level of actual social mobility, income inequality is perceived more positively with increased expected fairness. The opposite is expected for countries with low actual social mobility, due to an increasing relevance of a disappointment effect resulting from unsuccessful individual investments. Using the World Values Survey data and a broad set of fairness measures, we find strong support for the negative (positive) association between fairness perceptions and the demand for more equal incomes (subjective well-being). We also find strong empirical support for the disappointment effect in low social mobility countries. In contrast, the results for high-mobility countries turn out to be ambiguous.

Sprache
Englisch
ISBN
978-3-940369-69-7

Erschienen in
Series: Hamburg Contemporary Economic Discussions ; No. 27

Klassifikation
Wirtschaft
General Welfare; Well-Being
Publicly Provided Goods: General
Personal Income, Wealth, and Their Distributions
Job, Occupational, and Intergenerational Mobility; Promotion
Economic Sociology; Economic Anthropology; Language; Social and Economic Stratification
Thema
happiness
life satisfaction
subjective well-being
inequality
income distribution
redistribution
political ideology
justice
fairness
World Values Survey

Ereignis
Geistige Schöpfung
(wer)
Bjørnskov, Christian
Dreher, Axel
Fischer, Justina A. V.
Schnellenbach, Jan
Ereignis
Veröffentlichung
(wer)
University of Hamburg, Faculty of Business, Economics and Social Sciences, Chair for Economic Policy
(wo)
Hamburg
(wann)
2009

Handle
Letzte Aktualisierung
20.09.2024, 08:24 MESZ

Datenpartner

Dieses Objekt wird bereitgestellt von:
ZBW - Deutsche Zentralbibliothek für Wirtschaftswissenschaften - Leibniz-Informationszentrum Wirtschaft. Bei Fragen zum Objekt wenden Sie sich bitte an den Datenpartner.

Objekttyp

  • Arbeitspapier

Beteiligte

  • Bjørnskov, Christian
  • Dreher, Axel
  • Fischer, Justina A. V.
  • Schnellenbach, Jan
  • University of Hamburg, Faculty of Business, Economics and Social Sciences, Chair for Economic Policy

Entstanden

  • 2009

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