IDEAS home Printed from https://ideas.repec.org/a/taf/oxdevs/v39y2011i1p1-24.html
   My bibliography  Save this article

Does Economic Growth Raise Happiness in China?

Author

Listed:
  • John Knight
  • Ramani Gunatilaka

Abstract

Various measures of satisfaction with life or happiness in China appear not to have risen in recent years, despite China's remarkable growth of income per capita. The paper brings together and integrates the results of four papers by the authors to provide a methodologically and substantively innovative explanation for this paradox. The four papers are based on a cross-section national household survey relating to 2002 and containing questions on subjective well-being. Their findings help to explain the time-series evidence: they highlight the importance of relative income, rising urban insecurity, rapid urbanization, and changing reference groups in preventing happiness from rising with income.

Suggested Citation

  • John Knight & Ramani Gunatilaka, 2011. "Does Economic Growth Raise Happiness in China?," Oxford Development Studies, Taylor & Francis Journals, vol. 39(1), pages 1-24.
    • Handle: RePEc:taf:oxdevs:v:39:y:2011:i:1:p:1-24
    DOI: 10.1080/13600818.2010.551006
    as

    Download full text from publisher

    File URL: http://www.tandfonline.com/doi/abs/10.1080/13600818.2010.551006
    Download Restriction: Access to full text is restricted to subscribers.
    File URL: https://libkey.io/10.1080/13600818.2010.551006?utm_source=ideas
    LibKey link: if access is restricted and if your library uses this service, LibKey will redirect you to where you can use your library subscription to access this item
    ---><---

    As the access to this document is restricted, you may want to search for a different version of it.

    References listed on IDEAS

    as
    1. 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.
    2. Knight, John & Gunatilaka, Ramani, 2012. "Income, aspirations and the Hedonic Treadmill in a poor society," Journal of Economic Behavior & Organization, Elsevier, vol. 82(1), pages 67-81.
    Full references (including those not matched with items on IDEAS)

    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. Jinan Zeidan, 2015. "Are Comparisons Luxuries? Subjective Poverty and Positional Concerns in Indonesia," AMSE Working Papers 1505, Aix-Marseille School of Economics, France.
    3. Zhiming Cheng & Haining Wang & Russell Smyth, 2014. "Happiness and job satisfaction in urban China: A comparative study of two generations of migrants and urban locals," Urban Studies, Urban Studies Journal Limited, vol. 51(10), pages 2160-2184, August.
    4. Yongwei Chen & Dahai Fu & Xinyue Ye, 2021. "Income comparison and happiness: The role of fair income distribution," Australian Economic Papers, Wiley Blackwell, vol. 60(1), pages 41-63, March.
    5. Zhijian Zhang & Xueyuan Wang, 2021. "Ambition or Jealousy? It Depends on Whom you are Compared with," Journal of Happiness Studies, Springer, vol. 22(3), pages 1189-1215, March.
    6. Edsel Beja, 2014. "Income growth and happiness: reassessment of the Easterlin Paradox," International Review of Economics, Springer;Happiness Economics and Interpersonal Relations (HEIRS), vol. 61(4), pages 329-346, December.
    7. Asadullah, M. Niaz & Xiao, Saizi & Yeoh, Emile, 2018. "Subjective well-being in China, 2005–2010: The role of relative income, gender, and location," China Economic Review, Elsevier, vol. 48(C), pages 83-101.
    8. John Knight & Ramani Gunatilak, 2014. "Subjective Well-being and Social Evaluation in a Poor Country," CSAE Working Paper Series 2014-09, Centre for the Study of African Economies, University of Oxford.
    9. Massimo Baldini & Giovanni Gallo & Costanza Torricelli, 2020. "The scars of scarcity in the short run: an empirical investigation across Europe," Economia Politica: Journal of Analytical and Institutional Economics, Springer;Fondazione Edison, vol. 37(3), pages 1033-1069, October.
    10. Marcin Piekałkiewicz, 2017. "Why do economists study happiness?," The Economic and Labour Relations Review, , vol. 28(3), pages 361-377, September.
    11. Powdthavee, Nattavudh & Stutzer, Alois, 2014. "Economic Approaches to Understanding Change in Happiness," IZA Discussion Papers 8131, Institute of Labor Economics (IZA).
    12. Marta Barazzetta & Simon Appleton & Trudy Owens, 2020. "Hedonic Adaptation to Treatment: Evidence from a Medical Intervention," Journal of Development Studies, Taylor & Francis Journals, vol. 56(3), pages 613-629, March.
    13. Hovi Matti & Laamanen Jani-Petri, 2020. "Income, Aspirations and Subjective Well-being: International Evidence," Working Papers 2029, Tampere University, Faculty of Management and Business, Economics.
    14. Jinan Zeidan, 2015. "Are Comparisons Luxuries? Subjective Poverty and Positional Concerns in Indonesia," Working Papers halshs-01114396, HAL.
    15. Andrew E. Clark, 2018. "Four Decades of the Economics of Happiness: Where Next?," Review of Income and Wealth, International Association for Research in Income and Wealth, vol. 64(2), pages 245-269, June.
    16. Ravallion, Martin, 2019. "Global inequality when unequal countries create unequal people," European Economic Review, Elsevier, vol. 111(C), pages 85-97.
    17. Meng, Xin & Xue, Sen, 2017. "Social Networks and Mental Health Problems: Evidence from Rural-to-Urban Migrants in China," IZA Discussion Papers 10481, Institute of Labor Economics (IZA).
    18. Schünemann, Johannes & Trimborn, Timo, 2023. "Boosting taxes for boasting about houses? Status concerns in the housing market," Journal of Economic Behavior & Organization, Elsevier, vol. 205(C), pages 120-143.
    19. Van Landeghem, Bert & Vandeplas, Anneleen, 2018. "The relationship between status and happiness: Evidence from the caste system in rural India," Journal of Behavioral and Experimental Economics (formerly The Journal of Socio-Economics), Elsevier, vol. 77(C), pages 62-71.

    More about this item

    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:taf:oxdevs:v:39:y:2011:i:1:p:1-24. 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: Chris Longhurst (email available below). General contact details of provider: http://www.tandfonline.com/CODS20 .

    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.