IDEAS home Printed from https://ideas.repec.org/a/eee/soceco/v40y2011i5p564-572.html
   My bibliography  Save this article

Hong Kong's happiness indices: What they tell us about LIFE?

Author

Listed:
  • Ho, Lok Sang

Abstract

A series of surveys conducted in Hong Kong since 2005 shows a decline and then a recovery in the happiness index. A series of regression analysis suggests that the recent rise in the happiness index that began ahead of the financial tsunami and continued uninterrupted by the crisis possibly reflected a change in values and attitudes. It was further suggested that the positive or negative feelings associated with any activity may be affected by past events and expectations about the future and may not be intrinsic to the activity. Moreover, one's happiness appears to relate more to emotional than intellectual development, as suggested in indicators on Love, Insight, Fortitude, and Engagement (LIFE). Females appear to have higher scores on all LIFE scores, while one's life goals as well as LIFE scores tend to change as one ages.

Suggested Citation

  • Ho, Lok Sang, 2011. "Hong Kong's happiness indices: What they tell us about LIFE?," Journal of Behavioral and Experimental Economics (formerly The Journal of Socio-Economics), Elsevier, vol. 40(5), pages 564-572.
    • Handle: RePEc:eee:soceco:v:40:y:2011:i:5:p:564-572
    DOI: 10.1016/j.socec.2011.04.013
    as

    Download full text from publisher

    File URL: http://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S1053535711000448
    Download Restriction: Full text for ScienceDirect subscribers only
    File URL: https://libkey.io/10.1016/j.socec.2011.04.013?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. 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.
    2. Blanchflower, David G. & Oswald, Andrew J., 2008. "Is well-being U-shaped over the life cycle?," Social Science & Medicine, Elsevier, vol. 66(8), pages 1733-1749, April.
    3. Leslie Francis & Yaacov Katz & Yaacov Yablon & Mandy Robbins, 2004. "Religiosity, Personality, and Happiness: A Study among Israeli Male Undergraduates," Journal of Happiness Studies, Springer, vol. 5(4), pages 315-333, December.
    4. Bruno S. Frey & Alois Stutzer, 2002. "What Can Economists Learn from Happiness Research?," Journal of Economic Literature, American Economic Association, vol. 40(2), pages 402-435, June.
    5. Veenhoven, Ruut, 2010. "Capability and happiness: Conceptual difference and reality links," Journal of Behavioral and Experimental Economics (formerly The Journal of Socio-Economics), Elsevier, vol. 39(3), pages 344-350, June.
    6. Alan B. Krueger & Daniel Kahneman & David Schkade & Norbert Schwarz & Arthur A. Stone, 2009. "National Time Accounting: The Currency of Life," NBER Chapters, in: Measuring the Subjective Well-Being of Nations: National Accounts of Time Use and Well-Being, pages 9-86, National Bureau of Economic Research, Inc.
    7. Ho, Lok Sang, 1998. "A model of human nature and personal development," Journal of Behavioral and Experimental Economics (formerly The Journal of Socio-Economics), Elsevier, vol. 27(2), pages 271-287.
    8. K. K. Lancaster, 2010. "A New Approach to Consumer Theory," Levine's Working Paper Archive 1385, David K. Levine.
    9. Easterlin, Richard A, 2001. "Income and Happiness: Towards an Unified Theory," Economic Journal, Royal Economic Society, vol. 111(473), pages 465-484, July.
    10. Krueger, Alan B. (ed.), 2009. "Measuring the Subjective Well-Being of Nations," National Bureau of Economic Research Books, University of Chicago Press, number 9780226454566, November.
    11. Kelvin J. Lancaster, 1966. "A New Approach to Consumer Theory," Journal of Political Economy, University of Chicago Press, vol. 74(2), pages 132-132.
    12. Barry Schwartz & Kenneth Sharpe, 2006. "Practical Wisdom: Aristotle meets Positive Psychology," Journal of Happiness Studies, Springer, vol. 7(3), pages 377-395, September.
    13. Frey, Bruno S & Stutzer, Alois, 2000. "Happiness, Economy and Institutions," Economic Journal, Royal Economic Society, vol. 110(466), pages 918-938, October.
    14. Alan B. Krueger & Daniel Kahneman & David Schkade & Norbert Schwarz & Arthur A. Stone, 2009. "National Time Accounting: The Currency of Life," NBER Chapters, in: Measuring the Subjective Well-Being of Nations: National Accounts of Time Use and Well-Being, pages 9-86, National Bureau of Economic Research, Inc.
    15. Yew-Kwang Ng & Lok Sang Ho (ed.), 2006. "Happiness and Public Policy," Palgrave Macmillan Books, Palgrave Macmillan, number 978-0-230-28802-7, September.
    16. Alan B. Krueger, 2009. "Measuring the Subjective Well-Being of Nations: National Accounts of Time Use and Well-Being," NBER Books, National Bureau of Economic Research, Inc, number krue08-1, July.
    17. Krueger, Alan B. (ed.), 2009. "Measuring the Subjective Well-Being of Nations," University of Chicago Press Economics Books, University of Chicago Press, number 9780226454573, November.
    18. repec:pri:cepsud:157krueger is not listed on IDEAS
    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. Andreas Knabe & Steffen Rätzel & Ronnie Schöb & Joachim Weimann, 2010. "Dissatisfied with Life but Having a Good Day: Time-use and Well-being of the Unemployed," Economic Journal, Royal Economic Society, vol. 120(547), pages 867-889, September.
    2. Jeffrey R. Bloem & Andrew J. Oswald, 2022. "The Analysis of Human Feelings: A Practical Suggestion for a Robustness Test," Review of Income and Wealth, International Association for Research in Income and Wealth, vol. 68(3), pages 689-710, September.
    3. Baetschmann, Gregori & Staub, Kevin E. & Studer, Raphael, 2016. "Does the stork deliver happiness? Parenthood and life satisfaction," Journal of Economic Behavior & Organization, Elsevier, vol. 130(C), pages 242-260.
    4. Frijters, Paul & Clark, Andrew E. & Krekel, Christian & Layard, Richard, 2020. "A happy choice: wellbeing as the goal of government," Behavioural Public Policy, Cambridge University Press, vol. 4(2), pages 126-165, July.
    5. Christopher Mackie & Conal Smith, 2015. "Conceptualizing Subjective Well-Being And Its Many Dimensions – Implications For Data Collection In Official Statistics And For Policy Relevance," Statistics in Transition New Series, Polish Statistical Association, vol. 16(3), pages 335-372, September.
    6. Conal Smith & Christopher Mackie, 2015. "Conceptualizing Subjective Well-Being and its Many Dimensions – Implications for Data Collection in Official Statistics and for Policy Relevance," Statistics in Transition new series, Główny Urząd Statystyczny (Polska), vol. 16(3), pages 335-372, September.
    7. Song, Younghwan, 2015. "A Cross-State Comparison of Measures of Subjective Well-Being," IZA Discussion Papers 9396, Institute of Labor Economics (IZA).
    8. Marie Connolly, 2013. "Some Like It Mild and Not Too Wet: The Influence of Weather on Subjective Well-Being," Journal of Happiness Studies, Springer, vol. 14(2), pages 457-473, April.
    9. John F. Helliwell & Shun Wang, 2010. "Trust and Well-being," NBER Working Papers 15911, National Bureau of Economic Research, Inc.
    10. Beja Jr, Edsel, 2012. "Who is happier: Housewife or working wife?," MPRA Paper 40533, University Library of Munich, Germany.
    11. Stefano Bartolini & Ennio Bilancini & Francesco Sarracino, 2013. "Predicting the Trend of Well-Being in Germany: How Much Do Comparisons, Adaptation and Sociability Matter?," Social Indicators Research: An International and Interdisciplinary Journal for Quality-of-Life Measurement, Springer, vol. 114(2), pages 169-191, November.
    12. Lejla TERZIĆ, 2018. "A competitive economy as the path to future prosperity: Comparative analysis of selected European countries," Theoretical and Applied Economics, Asociatia Generala a Economistilor din Romania - AGER, vol. 0(2(615), S), pages 149-162, Summer.
    13. John F. Helliwell, 2011. "How Can Subjective Well-being Be Improved?," New Directions for Intelligent Government in Canada: Papers in Honour of Ian Stewart, in: Fred Gorbet & Andrew Sharpe (ed.),New Directions for Intelligent Government in Canada: Papers in Honour of Ian Stewart, pages 283-304, Centre for the Study of Living Standards.
    14. Marta Lachowska, 2017. "The Effect of Income on Subjective Well-Being: Evidence from the 2008 Economic Stimulus Tax Rebates," Journal of Human Resources, University of Wisconsin Press, vol. 52(2), pages 374-417.
    15. Iddisah Sulemana, 2015. "An Empirical Investigation of the Relationship Between Social Capital and Subjective Well-Being in Ghana," Journal of Happiness Studies, Springer, vol. 16(5), pages 1299-1321, October.
    16. Arnaud Joskin, 2017. "Working Paper 04-17 - Qu’est-ce qui compte pour les Belges ? Analyse des déterminants du bien-être individuel en Belgique [Working Paper 04-17 - Wat telt voor de Belgen? Analyse van de determinante," Working Papers 1704, Federal Planning Bureau, Belgium.
    17. Christopher Christodoulou & Stefan Schneider & Arthur Stone, 2014. "Validation of a Brief Yesterday Measure of Hedonic Well-Being and Daily Activities: Comparison with the Day Reconstruction Method," Social Indicators Research: An International and Interdisciplinary Journal for Quality-of-Life Measurement, Springer, vol. 115(3), pages 907-917, February.
    18. 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.
    19. Song, Younghwan & Gao, Jia, 2018. "Does Telework Stress Employees Out? A Study on Working at Home and Subjective Well-Being for Wage/Salary Workers," IZA Discussion Papers 11993, Institute of Labor Economics (IZA).
    20. Pierre-Philippe Combes & Gilles Duranton & Laurent Gobillon, 2012. "The Cost of Agglomeration: Land Prices in Cities," Sciences Po publications 9240, Sciences Po.

    More about this item

    Keywords

    Happiness; Happiness formula; Time accounting; Prospective happiness; Happiness in process; Retrospective happiness;
    All these keywords.

    JEL classification:

    • I00 - Health, Education, and Welfare - - General - - - General
    • I18 - Health, Education, and Welfare - - Health - - - Government Policy; Regulation; Public Health
    • I28 - Health, Education, and Welfare - - Education - - - Government Policy

    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:eee:soceco:v:40:y:2011:i:5:p:564-572. 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: Catherine Liu (email available below). General contact details of provider: http://www.elsevier.com/locate/inca/620175 .

    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.