IDEAS home Printed from https://ideas.repec.org/a/oup/oxecpp/v76y2024i2p291-313..html

How difficult is it to interpret subjective well-being questions during crises? Evidence from the onset of conflict in Yemen

Author

Listed:
  • Sharad Tandon

Abstract

Subjective well-being (SWB) measures, such as satisfaction with income, are increasingly being used to measure changes in well-being in response to policy changes and shocks. However, large policy changes or shocks themselves might cause individuals to change how they answer SWB questions in ways that have little to do with changes in objective well-being measures. For example, respondent-specific scales that individuals use to respond to SWB questions (e.g. threshold of income required to be satisfied) might change at the same time that income is changing following a shock. We illustrate the importance of this concern following the onset of conflict in Yemen, where households reported a large improvement in SWB across a range of different dimensions despite large declines in nearly all traditional and objective measures of well-being.

Suggested Citation

  • Sharad Tandon, 2024. "How difficult is it to interpret subjective well-being questions during crises? Evidence from the onset of conflict in Yemen," Oxford Economic Papers, Oxford University Press, vol. 76(2), pages 291-313.
    • Handle: RePEc:oup:oxecpp:v:76:y:2024:i:2:p:291-313.
    as

    Download full text from publisher

    File URL: http://hdl.handle.net/10.1093/oep/gpad028
    Download Restriction: Access to full text is restricted to subscribers.
    ---><---

    As the access to this document is restricted, you may want to

    for a different version of it.

    References listed on IDEAS

    as
    1. Botond Kőszegi & Matthew Rabin, 2006. "A Model of Reference-Dependent Preferences," The Quarterly Journal of Economics, President and Fellows of Harvard College, vol. 121(4), pages 1133-1165.
    2. Adjognon, Guigonan Serge & Bloem, Jeffrey R. & Sanoh, Aly, 2021. "The coronavirus pandemic and food security: Evidence from Mali," Food Policy, Elsevier, vol. 101(C).
    3. Beegle, Kathleen & Himelein, Kristen & Ravallion, Martin, 2012. "Frame-of-reference bias in subjective welfare," Journal of Economic Behavior & Organization, Elsevier, vol. 81(2), pages 556-570.
    4. Daniel Kahneman & Amos Tversky, 2013. "Prospect Theory: An Analysis of Decision Under Risk," World Scientific Book Chapters, in: Leonard C MacLean & William T Ziemba (ed.), HANDBOOK OF THE FUNDAMENTALS OF FINANCIAL DECISION MAKING Part I, chapter 6, pages 99-127, World Scientific Publishing Co. Pte. Ltd..
    5. Efstratia Arampatzi & Martijn Burger & Elena Ianchovichina & Tina Röhricht & Ruut Veenhoven, 2018. "Unhappy Development: Dissatisfaction With Life on the Eve of the Arab Spring," Review of Income and Wealth, International Association for Research in Income and Wealth, vol. 64(s1), pages 80-113, October.
    6. Sharad Tandon, 2019. "When Rebels Attack: Quantifying the Impacts of Capturing Territory from the Government in Yemen," The World Bank Economic Review, World Bank, vol. 33(2), pages 328-352.
    7. Hai‐Anh H. Dang & Elena Ianchovichina, 2018. "Welfare Dynamics With Synthetic Panels: The Case of the Arab World In Transition," Review of Income and Wealth, International Association for Research in Income and Wealth, vol. 64(s1), pages 114-144, October.
    8. Martin Ravallion & Kristen Himelein & Kathleen Beegle, 2016. "Can Subjective Questions on Economic Welfare Be Trusted?," Economic Development and Cultural Change, University of Chicago Press, vol. 64(4), pages 697-726.
    9. World Bank, 2012. "World Development Report 2012 [Rapport sur le développement dans le monde 2012]," World Bank Publications - Books, The World Bank Group, number 4391, April.
    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. Ma, Wanglin & Zheng, Hongyun & Boansi, David & Horlu, Godwin S.A.K. & Owusu, Victor, 2025. "Types of employment and well-being of rural residents: A multinomial endogenous switching regression application," Economic Modelling, Elsevier, vol. 147(C).

    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. Shunda, Nicholas, 2009. "Auctions with a buy price: The case of reference-dependent preferences," Games and Economic Behavior, Elsevier, vol. 67(2), pages 645-664, November.
    2. Castilla, Carolina & Haab, Timothy C., 2010. "Asymmetric Search and Loss Aversion: Choice Experiment on Consumer Willingness to Search in the Gasoline Retail Market," 2010 Annual Meeting, July 25-27, 2010, Denver, Colorado 61672, Agricultural and Applied Economics Association.
    3. Carolin Bock & Maximilian Schmidt, 2015. "Should I stay, or should I go? – How fund dynamics influence venture capital exit decisions," Review of Financial Economics, John Wiley & Sons, vol. 27(1), pages 68-82, November.
    4. Damgaard, Mette Trier & Nielsen, Helena Skyt, 2018. "Nudging in education," Economics of Education Review, Elsevier, vol. 64(C), pages 313-342.
    5. Karle, Heiko & Schumacher, Heiner & Vølund, Rune, 2023. "Consumer loss aversion and scale-dependent psychological switching costs," Games and Economic Behavior, Elsevier, vol. 138(C), pages 214-237.
    6. Yuval Arbel & Danny Ben-Shahar & Stuart Gabriel, 2016. "Are The Disabled Less Loss Averse? Evidence From A Natural Policy Experiment," Economic Inquiry, Western Economic Association International, vol. 54(2), pages 1291-1318, April.
    7. A. Banerji & Neha Gupta, 2011. "Do Auction Bids Betray Expectations-Based Reference Dependent Preferences? A Test, Experimental Evidence, And Estimates Of Loss Aversion," Working papers 206, Centre for Development Economics, Delhi School of Economics.
    8. 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.
    9. Schmidt, Ulrich & Friedl, Andreas & Lima de Miranda, Katharina, 2015. "Social comparison and gender differences in risk taking," Kiel Working Papers 2011, Kiel Institute for the World Economy.
    10. Che-Yuan Liang, 2017. "Optimal inequality behind the veil of ignorance," Theory and Decision, Springer, vol. 83(3), pages 431-455, October.
    11. Sliwka, Dirk & Werner, Peter, 2016. "How Do Agents React to Dynamic Wage Increases? An Experimental Study," IZA Discussion Papers 9855, Institute of Labor Economics (IZA).
    12. Ariane Charpin, 2018. "Tests des modèles de décision en situation de risque. Le cas des parieurs hippiques en France," Revue économique, Presses de Sciences-Po, vol. 69(5), pages 779-803.
    13. Stefano DellaVigna, 2009. "Psychology and Economics: Evidence from the Field," Journal of Economic Literature, American Economic Association, vol. 47(2), pages 315-372, June.
    14. Liang, Jian & Zhao, Ya & Wang, Hai & Yang, Linchuan & Ke, Jintao, 2025. "Understanding order cancellation behavior in on-demand delivery services," Transportation Research Part A: Policy and Practice, Elsevier, vol. 198(C).
    15. Zhang, nan & Qin, Botao, 2020. "Reference point adaptation and air quality – Experimental evidence with anti-PM 2.5 facemasks from China," MPRA Paper 102935, University Library of Munich, Germany.
    16. Alex Imas & Sally Sadoff & Anya Samek, 2017. "Do People Anticipate Loss Aversion?," Management Science, INFORMS, vol. 63(5), pages 1271-1284, May.
    17. Pak, Tae-Young, 2023. "Relative deprivation and financial risk taking✰," Finance Research Letters, Elsevier, vol. 55(PA).
    18. Thomas Kniesner & W. Viscusi & James Ziliak, 2014. "Willingness to accept equals willingness to pay for labor market estimates of the value of a statistical life," Journal of Risk and Uncertainty, Springer, vol. 48(3), pages 187-205, June.
    19. Enrico G. De Giorgi & Thierry Post, 2011. "Loss Aversion with a State-Dependent Reference Point," Management Science, INFORMS, vol. 57(6), pages 1094-1110, June.
    20. Alekseev, Aleksandr & Sokolov, Mikhail V., 2021. "How to measure the average rate of change?," Mathematical Social Sciences, Elsevier, vol. 113(C), pages 43-59.

    More about this item

    JEL classification:

    • D12 - Microeconomics - - Household Behavior - - - Consumer Economics: Empirical Analysis
    • E24 - Macroeconomics and Monetary Economics - - Consumption, Saving, Production, Employment, and Investment - - - Employment; Unemployment; Wages; Intergenerational Income Distribution; Aggregate Human Capital; Aggregate Labor Productivity
    • O12 - Economic Development, Innovation, Technological Change, and Growth - - Economic Development - - - Microeconomic Analyses of Economic Development

    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:oup:oxecpp:v:76:y:2024:i:2:p:291-313.. 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: Oxford University Press (email available below). General contact details of provider: https://academic.oup.com/oep .

    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.