How Much Satisfaction Does Income Buy? Cross-Country Comparisons

宾夕法尼亚州立大学之前的研究表明，富人往往更幸福，至少在西方是这样。收入效应有多大，各国有没有不同？PI将使用世界价值观调查(WVS)的数据来解决这些问题，这是迄今为止记录世界各地价值观、态度和信仰的最大规模的系统性尝试。WVS包括富裕国家和贫穷国家的混合，这些国家加在一起是世界上绝大多数人的家园。这项研究将结合55个富国和穷国的数据，包括161个收入背景下的20多万人，从而为检验假设提供丰富的数据集。这项研究提出了四个假设。第一个假设是，收入对满意度的影响取决于一个人的同胞的收入，也取决于一个人自己的收入。这就是相对收入假说：对于给定的收入水平，较贫穷国家的个人往往比较富裕国家的个人更满意。第二个假设是，收入的绝对水平对一个人的生活满意度也很重要。因此，我们的第二个假设是，对于两个相对收入相同的人来说，富裕国家的个人往往会更满意。富裕国家的人往往会更满意，因为他们会比贫穷国家相对收入相同的人更富有--这是绝对收入效应。第三个假设是，相对收入效应在富裕国家占主导地位。在达到一定的收入门槛后，生活满意度的关键不是一个人能买多少，而是他是否能买得比别人多。如果是这样的话，富裕国家不断增长的收入意味着个人必须赚得越来越多，才能保持持续的满足感--这一现象被称为“享乐跑步机”。然而，享乐主义的跑步机只适用于富裕国家。对于生活在贫穷国家的世界上大多数人来说，重要的仍然是一个人能买到什么。因此，第四个假设：在贫穷国家，收入对满意度的影响在很大程度上是绝对的收入影响。布罗德影响这些假设是及时和重要的，因为最近的研究表明，收入和主观幸福感之间的联系并不像人们曾经认为的那样紧密。有一些证据表明，尤其是在西方，不断增长的收入并没有带来更幸福或更满意的人。这项研究的一个重大贡献是更多地阐明了西方是否真的适合享乐主义跑步机模型的问题。在这一点上，享乐主义跑步机模型在很大程度上是基于这样的观察，即尽管过去半个世纪收入大幅增长，但一些富裕国家的平均幸福感并未增加。但对满意度持平的趋势还有其他可能的解释，这项研究旨在更直接地检验相对收入假说。这项拟议的研究有助于我们在个人和社会层面上理解收入和生活满意度之间的联系，对21世纪的个人和社会具有潜在的重要影响。

SES-0549718Glenn FirebaughPennsylvania State UniversityPrior research shows that richer people tend to be happier, at least in the West. How large is the income effect, and does it vary from country to country? The PI will address these questions using data from the World Values Survey (WVS), the largest systematic attempt to date that documents values, attitudes, and beliefs around the world. The WVS includes a mix of rich countries and poor countries that together are home to a large majority of the world's people. This study will combine data from 55 rich and poor countries, comprising over 200,000 individuals in 161 income contexts, thus providing a rich set of data for testing hypotheses. The research addresses four hypotheses. The first hypothesis is that the effect of income on satisfaction depends on the income of one's fellow citizens as well as on one's own income. This is the relative income hypothesis: For a given level of income, individuals in poorer countries will tend to be more satisfied than individuals in richer countries. The second hypothesis is that the absolute level of one's income also matters for one's life satisfaction. Hence our second hypothesis states that for two individuals with the same relative income, the individual in the richer country will tend to be more satisfied. The individual in the richer country will tend to be more satisfied because they will be richer than her counterpart with the same relative income in a poorer country -- an absolute income effect. The third hypothesis is that relative income effects dominate in rich countries. After a certain income threshold, what counts for life satisfaction is not how much an individual can buy, but whether they can buy more than others can. If so, then rising incomes in rich countries mean that individuals must earn more and more just to maintain a constant level of satisfaction-a phenomenon that has been called the "hedonic treadmill." The hedonic treadmill applies only to rich countries, however. For the majority of the world's people who live in poor countries, it continues to be the case that what counts is what one can buy. Thus the fourth hypothesis: In poor countries the effect of income on satisfaction is largely an absolute income effect.Broader ImpactsThe hypotheses are timely and important because recent research indicates that the link between income and subjective well-being is not as tight as once believed. There is some evidence that in the West in particular rising incomes have not led to happier or more satisfied people. A significant contribution of this study is to shed more light on the question of whether the West in fact fits the hedonic treadmill model. To this point the hedonic treadmill model rests largely on the observation that average happiness has failed to increase in some rich countries despite significant income gains over the past half century. But there are other possible explanations for the flat trend in satisfaction, and this research is designed to test the relative income hypothesis more directly. By contributing to our understanding of the connection between income and life satisfaction at both the individual level and the societal level, the proposed research has potentially important implications for individuals and societies in the 21st century.