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Does Money Buy Me Love? Testing Alternative Measures of National Wellbeing

Author

Listed:
  • Arthur Grimes

    (Motu Economic and Public Policy Research and University of Auckland)

  • les Oxley

    (University of Waikato)

  • Nicholas Tarrant

Abstract

Many aggregate measures of wellbeing and sustainability exist to guide policy-makers. However, the power of these aggregate measures to predict objective wellbeing outcomes has received little comparative testing. We compile and compare a range of aggregate wellbeing measures including: material measures (e.g. Gross Domestic Product per capita), surveyed measures (e.g. life satisfaction) and composite measures (e.g. Human Development Index) covering a range of countries. We test the predictive power of wellbeing measures for an objective indicator of how people value countries’ relative attractiveness. The objective indicator is net migration over a fifty year timespan, indicating people’s revealed preference (re)location choices. The paper examines relationships amongst cross-country wellbeing and sustainability measures; and examines how New Zealand compares with other countries according to these measures. Based on models of spatial (dis)equilibrium and migration, we present tests of the predictive power of alternative aggregate measures for international migration outcomes. We find that both material and life satisfaction outcomes are important determinants of the choice to migrate.

Suggested Citation

  • Arthur Grimes & les Oxley & Nicholas Tarrant, 2012. "Does Money Buy Me Love? Testing Alternative Measures of National Wellbeing," Working Papers 12_09, Motu Economic and Public Policy Research.
    • Handle: RePEc:mtu:wpaper:12_09
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    File URL: https://motu-www.motu.org.nz/wpapers/12_09.pdf
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    References listed on IDEAS

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    1. Ferreira, Susana & Vincent, Jeffrey R, 2005. "Genuine Savings: Leading Indicator of Sustainable Development?," Economic Development and Cultural Change, University of Chicago Press, vol. 53(3), pages 737-754, April.
    2. Philip McCann & Jacques Poot & Lynda Sanderson, 2010. "Migration, relationship capital and international travel: theory and evidence," Journal of Economic Geography, Oxford University Press, vol. 10(3), pages 361-387, May.
    3. Axel Dreher, 2006. "Does globalization affect growth? Evidence from a new index of globalization," Applied Economics, Taylor & Francis Journals, vol. 38(10), pages 1091-1110.
    4. Susana Ferreira & Kirk Hamilton & Jeffrey R. Vincent, 2008. "Comprehensive Wealth and Future Consumption: Accounting for Population Growth," The World Bank Economic Review, World Bank, vol. 22(2), pages 233-248, May.
    5. Dustmann, Christian, 2003. "Return migration, wage differentials, and the optimal migration duration," European Economic Review, Elsevier, vol. 47(2), pages 353-369, April.
    6. Edward L. Glaeser & Joshua D. Gottlieb, 2009. "The Wealth of Cities: Agglomeration Economies and Spatial Equilibrium in the United States," Journal of Economic Literature, American Economic Association, vol. 47(4), pages 983-1028, December.
    7. Abdallah, Saamah & Thompson, Sam & Marks, Nic, 2008. "Estimating worldwide life satisfaction," Ecological Economics, Elsevier, vol. 65(1), pages 35-47, March.
    8. Charles Blackorby & David Donaldson, 1990. "A Review Article: The Case against the Use of the Sum of Compensating Variations in Cost-Benefit Analysis," Canadian Journal of Economics, Canadian Economics Association, vol. 23(3), pages 471-494, August.
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    Citations

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    Cited by:

    1. Thomas Carver & Arthur Grimes, 2019. "Income or Consumption: Which Better Predicts Subjective Well‐Being?," Review of Income and Wealth, International Association for Research in Income and Wealth, vol. 65(S1), pages 256-280, November.
    2. Arthur Grimes & Sean Hyland, 2015. "A New Cross-Country Measure of Material Wellbeing and Inequality: Methodology, Construction and Results," Working Papers 15_09, Motu Economic and Public Policy Research.
    3. Arthur Grimes & Dennis Wesselbaum, 2018. "Moving towards happiness," Working Papers 18_07, Motu Economic and Public Policy Research.
    4. Paul Dalziel, 2019. "Wellbeing economics in public policy: A distinctive Australasian contribution?," The Economic and Labour Relations Review, , vol. 30(4), pages 478-497, December.
    5. Arthur Grimes & Sean Hyland, 2020. "Measuring cross‐country material wellbeing and inequality using consumer durables," Scottish Journal of Political Economy, Scottish Economic Society, vol. 67(3), pages 248-271, July.
    6. Arthur Grimes & Judd Ormsby & Kate Preston, 2017. "Wages, Wellbeing and Location: Slaving Away in Sydney or Cruising on the Gold Coast," Working Papers 17_07, Motu Economic and Public Policy Research.

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    More about this item

    Keywords

    aggregate wellbeing; life satisfaction; gross domestic product; migration;
    All these keywords.

    JEL classification:

    • A13 - General Economics and Teaching - - General Economics - - - Relation of Economics to Social Values
    • E01 - Macroeconomics and Monetary Economics - - General - - - Measurement and Data on National Income and Product Accounts and Wealth; Environmental Accounts
    • J61 - Labor and Demographic Economics - - Mobility, Unemployment, Vacancies, and Immigrant Workers - - - Geographic Labor Mobility; Immigrant Workers
    • R23 - Urban, Rural, Regional, Real Estate, and Transportation Economics - - Household Analysis - - - Regional Migration; Regional Labor Markets; Population

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