IDEAS home Printed from https://ideas.repec.org/a/jed/journl/v44y2019i3p41-57.html
   My bibliography  Save this article

The Relationship between Energy Consumption, Economic Growth and Happiness

Author

Listed:
  • Neila Ben Afia

    (University of Sousse, Tunisia)

Abstract

For the important role of happiness in our life, the aim of this study was to investigate empirically the relationship between the consumption of energy, economic growth and happiness. A distinction is drawn between the direct and indirect impact of consumption of energy on happiness which functions throughout the impact of consumption of energy on per capita income and the resulting impact of income on happiness. Using panel data analysis of 47 different countries over 14 years covering the period from 2001 to 2014, both direct and indirect effects of consumption of energy on happiness are estimated. We remedy the potential endogeneity problem when estimating the indirect effect by instrumenting the variable “consumption of energy”. Our results show that the consumption of energy has a significant positive direct impact and indirect effects on happiness resulting in an overall positive effect of consumption of energy on happiness for all countries

Suggested Citation

  • Neila Ben Afia, 2019. "The Relationship between Energy Consumption, Economic Growth and Happiness," Journal of Economic Development, Chung-Ang Unviersity, Department of Economics, vol. 44(3), pages 41-57, September.
    • Handle: RePEc:jed:journl:v:44:y:2019:i:3:p:41-57
    as

    Download full text from publisher

    File URL: http://jed.or.kr/full-text/44-3/3.pdf
    Download Restriction: no
    ---><---

    References listed on IDEAS

    as
    1. Welsch, Heinz, 2007. "Environmental welfare analysis: A life satisfaction approach," Ecological Economics, Elsevier, vol. 62(3-4), pages 544-551, May.
    2. Blanchflower, David G. & Oswald, Andrew J., 2004. "Well-being over time in Britain and the USA," Journal of Public Economics, Elsevier, vol. 88(7-8), pages 1359-1386, July.
    3. Angus Deaton, 2008. "Income, Health, and Well-Being around the World: Evidence from the Gallup World Poll," Journal of Economic Perspectives, American Economic Association, vol. 22(2), pages 53-72, Spring.
    4. Frey, Bruno S & Stutzer, Alois, 2000. "Happiness, Economy and Institutions," Economic Journal, Royal Economic Society, vol. 110(466), pages 918-938, October.
    5. Carol Graham & Stefano Pettinato, 2001. "Happiness, Markets, and Democracy: Latin America in Comparative Perspective," Journal of Happiness Studies, Springer, vol. 2(3), pages 237-268, September.
    6. Robert J. MacCulloch & Rafael Di Tella & Andrew J. Oswald, 2001. "Preferences over Inflation and Unemployment: Evidence from Surveys of Happiness," American Economic Review, American Economic Association, vol. 91(1), pages 335-341, March.
    7. Di Tella, Rafael & Haisken-De New, John & MacCulloch, Robert, 2010. "Happiness adaptation to income and to status in an individual panel," Journal of Economic Behavior & Organization, Elsevier, vol. 76(3), pages 834-852, December.
    8. Betsey Stevenson & Justin Wolfers, 2008. "Economic Growth and Subjective Well-Being: Reassessing the Easterlin Paradox," Brookings Papers on Economic Activity, Economic Studies Program, The Brookings Institution, vol. 39(1 (Spring), pages 1-102.
    9. Lelkes, Orsolya, 2006. "Knowing what is good for you: Empirical analysis of personal preferences and the "objective good"," Journal of Behavioral and Experimental Economics (formerly The Journal of Socio-Economics), Elsevier, vol. 35(2), pages 285-307, April.
    10. Levine, Ross & Zervos, Sara J, 1993. "What We Have Learned about Policy and Growth from Cross-Country Regressions?," American Economic Review, American Economic Association, vol. 83(2), pages 426-430, May.
    11. Huang, Bwo-Nung & Hwang, M.J. & Yang, C.W., 2008. "Causal relationship between energy consumption and GDP growth revisited: A dynamic panel data approach," Ecological Economics, Elsevier, vol. 67(1), pages 41-54, August.
    12. Helliwell, John F., 2003. "How's life? Combining individual and national variables to explain subjective well-being," Economic Modelling, Elsevier, vol. 20(2), pages 331-360, March.
    13. Crompton, Paul & Wu, Yanrui, 2005. "Energy consumption in China: past trends and future directions," Energy Economics, Elsevier, vol. 27(1), pages 195-208, January.
    14. Justin Wolfers, 2003. "Is Business Cycle Volatility Costly? Evidence from Surveys of Subjective Well‐Being," International Finance, Wiley Blackwell, vol. 6(1), pages 1-26, March.
    15. Edwards, Sebastian, 1998. "Openness, Productivity and Growth: What Do We Really Know?," Economic Journal, Royal Economic Society, vol. 108(447), pages 383-398, March.
    16. Andrew E. Clark & Nicolai Kristensen & Niels Westergård-Nielsen, 2009. "Economic Satisfaction and Income Rank in Small Neighbourhoods," Journal of the European Economic Association, MIT Press, vol. 7(2-3), pages 519-527, 04-05.
    17. Benjamin S. Cheng, 1999. "Causality Between Energy Consumption and Economic Growth in India: An Application of Cointegration and Error-Correction Modeling," Indian Economic Review, Department of Economics, Delhi School of Economics, vol. 34(1), pages 39-49, January.
    18. Ram, Rati, 1987. "Exports and Economic Growth in Developing Countries: Evidence from Time-Series and Cross-Section Data," Economic Development and Cultural Change, University of Chicago Press, vol. 36(1), pages 51-72, October.
    19. Balassa, Bela, 1985. "Exports, policy choices, and economic growth in developing countries after the 1973 oil shock," Journal of Development Economics, Elsevier, vol. 18(1), pages 23-35.
    20. Halicioglu, Ferda, 2007. "Residential electricity demand dynamics in Turkey," Energy Economics, Elsevier, vol. 29(2), pages 199-210, March.
    21. Michael A. Shields & Stephen Wheatley Price, 2005. "Exploring the economic and social determinants of psychological well‐being and perceived social support in England," Journal of the Royal Statistical Society Series A, Royal Statistical Society, vol. 168(3), pages 513-537, July.
    22. Squalli, Jay, 2007. "Electricity consumption and economic growth: Bounds and causality analyses of OPEC members," Energy Economics, Elsevier, vol. 29(6), pages 1192-1205, November.
    23. Robert Biswas-Diener & Ed Diener, 2001. "Making the Best of a Bad Situation: Satisfaction in the Slums of Calcutta," Social Indicators Research: An International and Interdisciplinary Journal for Quality-of-Life Measurement, Springer, vol. 55(3), pages 329-352, September.
    Full references (including those not matched with items on IDEAS)

    Citations

    Citations are extracted by the CitEc Project, subscribe to its RSS feed for this item.
    as


    Cited by:

    1. Kassim, Fatima & Isik, Abdurrahman, 2020. "The link between energy consumption and economic growth: Evidence from transition economies (1985-2017)," MPRA Paper 101601, University Library of Munich, Germany.

    Most related items

    These are the items that most often cite the same works as this one and are cited by the same works as this one.
    1. Andrew E. Clark & Claudia Senik, 2010. "Will GDP growth increase happiness in developing countries?," PSE Working Papers halshs-00564985, HAL.
    2. Neila Ben Afia and Sana Harbi, 2017. "Empirical Analysis of the Relationship between Military Endeavor, Economic Growth and Happiness," Journal of Economic Development, Chung-Ang Unviersity, Department of Economics, vol. 42(2), pages 51-66, June.
    3. Antje Mertens & Miriam Beblo, 2016. "Self-Reported Satisfaction and the Economic Crisis of 2007–2010: Or How People in the UK and Germany Perceive a Severe Cyclical Downturn," Social Indicators Research: An International and Interdisciplinary Journal for Quality-of-Life Measurement, Springer, vol. 125(2), pages 537-565, January.
    4. Dolan, Paul & Peasgood, Tessa & White, Mathew, 2008. "Do we really know what makes us happy A review of the economic literature on the factors associated with subjective well-being," Journal of Economic Psychology, Elsevier, vol. 29(1), pages 94-122, February.
    5. Nguyen, Ha & Duncan, Alan, 2015. "Macroeconomic fluctuations in home countries and immigrants’ well-being: New evidence from Down Under," MPRA Paper 69593, University Library of Munich, Germany, revised Feb 2016.
    6. Karl Aiginger & Kurt Kratena & Margit Schratzenstaller & Teresa Weiss, 2014. "Moving Towards a New Growth Model. WWWforEurope Deliverable No. 3," WIFO Studies, WIFO, number 47247, Juni.
    7. BARTOLINI Stefano & SARRACINO Francesco, 2011. "Happy for How Long? How Social Capital and GDP relate to Happiness over Time," LISER Working Paper Series 2011-60, Luxembourg Institute of Socio-Economic Research (LISER).
    8. Iddisah Sulemana, 2015. "The Effect of Fear of Crime and Crime Victimization on Subjective Well-Being in Africa," Social Indicators Research: An International and Interdisciplinary Journal for Quality-of-Life Measurement, Springer, vol. 121(3), pages 849-872, April.
    9. Jan-Emmanuel De Neve & George Ward & Femke De Keulenaer & Bert Van Landeghem & Georgios Kavetsos & Michael I. Norton, 2018. "The Asymmetric Experience of Positive and Negative Economic Growth: Global Evidence Using Subjective Well-Being Data," The Review of Economics and Statistics, MIT Press, vol. 100(2), pages 362-375, May.
    10. Lucía Macchia & Anke C. Plagnol, 2019. "Life Satisfaction and Confidence in National Institutions: Evidence from South America," Applied Research in Quality of Life, Springer;International Society for Quality-of-Life Studies, vol. 14(3), pages 721-736, July.
    11. Yuta J. Masuda & Jason R. Williams & Heather Tallis, 2021. "Does Life Satisfaction Vary with Time and Income? Investigating the Relationship Among Free Time, Income, and Life Satisfaction," Journal of Happiness Studies, Springer, vol. 22(5), pages 2051-2073, June.
    12. Di Tella, Rafael & MacCulloch, Robert, 2008. "Gross national happiness as an answer to the Easterlin Paradox?," Journal of Development Economics, Elsevier, vol. 86(1), pages 22-42, April.
    13. David G. Blanchflower, 2009. "International Evidence on Well-Being," NBER Chapters, in: Measuring the Subjective Well-Being of Nations: National Accounts of Time Use and Well-Being, pages 155-226, National Bureau of Economic Research, Inc.
    14. Harbi, Sana El & Grolleau, Gilles, 2012. "Does self-employment contribute to national happiness?," Journal of Behavioral and Experimental Economics (formerly The Journal of Socio-Economics), Elsevier, vol. 41(5), pages 670-676.
    15. Leonardo Becchetti & Alessandra Pelloni, 2013. "What are we learning from the life satisfaction literature?," International Review of Economics, Springer;Happiness Economics and Interpersonal Relations (HEIRS), vol. 60(2), pages 113-155, June.
    16. Mariangela Bonasia & Oreste Napolitano & Nicola Spagnolo, 2018. "Happy PIIGS?," Journal of Happiness Studies, Springer, vol. 19(6), pages 1763-1782, August.
    17. Blanchflower, David G; Oswald, Andrew, 2011. "International Happiness," CAGE Online Working Paper Series 39, Competitive Advantage in the Global Economy (CAGE).
    18. Sabna Ali & Syed Mansoob Murshed & Elissaios Papyrakis, 2020. "Happiness and the Resource Curse," Journal of Happiness Studies, Springer, vol. 21(2), pages 437-464, February.
    19. Martin Binder, 2013. "Innovativeness and Subjective Well-Being," Social Indicators Research: An International and Interdisciplinary Journal for Quality-of-Life Measurement, Springer, vol. 111(2), pages 561-578, April.
    20. Cancho,Cesar A. & Davalos,Maria Eugenia & Sanchez,Carolina, 2015. "Why so gloomy ? perceptions of economic mobility in Europe and Central Asia," Policy Research Working Paper Series 7519, The World Bank.

    More about this item

    Keywords

    Consumption of energy; Income; Happiness; Panel data;
    All these keywords.

    JEL classification:

    • C23 - Mathematical and Quantitative Methods - - Single Equation Models; Single Variables - - - Models with Panel Data; Spatio-temporal Models
    • A13 - General Economics and Teaching - - General Economics - - - Relation of Economics to Social Values
    • I3 - Health, Education, and Welfare - - Welfare, Well-Being, and Poverty

    Statistics

    Access and download statistics

    Corrections

    All material on this site has been provided by the respective publishers and authors. You can help correct errors and omissions. When requesting a correction, please mention this item's handle: RePEc:jed:journl:v:44:y:2019:i:3:p:41-57. See general information about how to correct material in RePEc.

    If you have authored this item and are not yet registered with RePEc, we encourage you to do it here. This allows to link your profile to this item. It also allows you to accept potential citations to this item that we are uncertain about.

    If CitEc recognized a bibliographic reference but did not link an item in RePEc to it, you can help with this form .

    If you know of missing items citing this one, you can help us creating those links by adding the relevant references in the same way as above, for each refering item. If you are a registered author of this item, you may also want to check the "citations" tab in your RePEc Author Service profile, as there may be some citations waiting for confirmation.

    For technical questions regarding this item, or to correct its authors, title, abstract, bibliographic or download information, contact: Sung Y. Park (email available below). General contact details of provider: https://edirc.repec.org/data/eccaukr.html .

    Please note that corrections may take a couple of weeks to filter through the various RePEc services.

    IDEAS is a RePEc service. RePEc uses bibliographic data supplied by the respective publishers.