There is consent among psychologists and some economists that satisfaction from some events, like income and marriage, is adaptive. We propose a subtle but vital difference: happiness may itself be adaptive. First we present a model to explain the emergence of adaptive stimuli. We test our hypotheses running dynamic happiness regressions based on data from the German Socio-Economic Panel Study, the British Household Panel Survey and the Swiss Household Panel. Surprisingly, the autoregressive component is positive and significant in most econometric models considered. We propose that the hedonic treadmill may be mixed with what we call the "scale treadmill".
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Paper provided by University Library of Munich, Germany in its series MPRA Paper with number
10269.
Find related papers by JEL classification: I31 - Health, Education, and Welfare - - Welfare and Poverty - - - General Welfare C23 - Mathematical and Quantitative Methods - - Single Equation Models; Single Variables - - - Models with Panel Data I00 - Health, Education, and Welfare - - General - - - General
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