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

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  • Grimes, Arthur
  • Oxley, Les
  • Tarrant, Nicholas

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

  • Grimes, Arthur & Oxley, Les & Tarrant, Nicholas, 2012. "Does Money Buy Me Love? Testing Alternative Measures of National Wellbeing," Motu Working Papers 291419, Motu Economic and Public Policy Research.
    • Handle: RePEc:ags:motuwp:291419
    DOI: 10.22004/ag.econ.291419
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    Cited by:

    1. is not listed on IDEAS
    2. 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.
    3. 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.
    4. Grimes, Arthur & Hyland, Sean, 2015. "A New Cross Country Measure of Material Wellbeing and Inequality Methodology, Construction and Results," Motu Working Papers 290591, Motu Economic and Public Policy Research.
    5. Grimes, Arthur & Ormsby, Judd & Preston, Kate, 2017. "Wages, Wellbeing and Location: Slaving Away in Sydney or Cruising on the Gold Coast," Motu Working Papers 290519, Motu Economic and Public Policy Research.
    6. 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.
    7. Grimes, Arthur & Wesselbaum, Dennis, 2018. "Moving towards happiness?," Motu Working Papers 290504, Motu Economic and Public Policy Research.

    More about this item

    Keywords

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    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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