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Cross-country determinants of life satisfaction: exploring different determinants across groups in society

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  • Christian Bjørnskov
  • Axel Dreher
  • Justina Fischer

Abstract

This paper explores a wide range of determinants of life satisfaction exploiting a database of 73 countries, based in turn on about 100 000 observations. The determinants can be categorized in four groups: political, economic, institutional factors and human development and culture. The relevance of these factors is estimated on country-level averages of satisfaction of sub-groups of national populations according to gender, income and political orientation, using OLS, robust regression and Extreme Bounds Analysis techniques. Our results show that only a small number of factors robustly influence life satisfaction across countries while the importance of a large number of alternative factors suggested in the previous literature is rejected.
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  • Christian Bjørnskov & Axel Dreher & Justina Fischer, 2008. "Cross-country determinants of life satisfaction: exploring different determinants across groups in society," Social Choice and Welfare, Springer;The Society for Social Choice and Welfare, vol. 30(1), pages 119-173, January.
    • Handle: RePEc:spr:sochwe:v:30:y:2008:i:1:p:119-173
    DOI: 10.1007/s00355-007-0225-4
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    JEL classification:

    • I31 - Health, Education, and Welfare - - Welfare, Well-Being, and Poverty - - - General Welfare, Well-Being
    • H10 - Public Economics - - Structure and Scope of Government - - - General
    • H40 - Public Economics - - Publicly Provided Goods - - - General

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