IDEAS home Printed from https://ideas.repec.org/p/wiw/wiwrsa/ersa16p165.html
   My bibliography  Save this paper

Climate and Happiness in the Tropics

Author

Listed:
  • Arief Yusuf

  • Martin Daniel Siyaranamual
  • Aisyah Amatul Ghina

  • Megananda Suryana

Abstract

Despite the increasing number of studies on self-reported happiness, due to data availability, only a few studies from developing countries exist. Moreover, even though climate is among the most important input to human activities, only a handfull of studies explicitly associate it with self-reported wellbeing. This paper combines a survey of 17,000 individuals representing 85% of Indonesian population and GIS data on local climate to establish a causation between climate variables (temperature and rainfalls) on individual subjective well-being. We found that happiness is not associated with temperature, as expected because tropical country like Indonesia does not have much temperature variation. However, rainfall is found to significantly associated with self-reported happiness. We found that the relationship is not linear, where higher rainfall is associated with more happiness but it reduces it after some point. Policy implications are discussed.

Suggested Citation

  • Arief Yusuf & Martin Daniel Siyaranamual & Aisyah Amatul Ghina & Megananda Suryana, 2016. "Climate and Happiness in the Tropics," ERSA conference papers ersa16p165, European Regional Science Association.
    • Handle: RePEc:wiw:wiwrsa:ersa16p165
    as

    Download full text from publisher

    File URL: https://www-sre.wu.ac.at/ersa/ersaconfs/ersa16/Paper165_AisyahGhina.pdf
    Download Restriction: no
    ---><---

    References listed on IDEAS

    as
    1. 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.
    2. Frey, Bruno S & Stutzer, Alois, 2000. "Happiness, Economy and Institutions," Economic Journal, Royal Economic Society, vol. 110(466), pages 918-938, October.
    3. Bruno S. Frey, 2018. "Economics of Happiness," SpringerBriefs in Economics, Springer, number 978-3-319-75807-7, March.
    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. Easterlin, Richard A., 1974. "Does Economic Growth Improve the Human Lot? Some Empirical Evidence," MPRA Paper 111773, University Library of Munich, Germany.
    6. East, Chloe N. & Kuka, Elira, 2015. "Reexamining the consumption smoothing benefits of Unemployment Insurance," Journal of Public Economics, Elsevier, vol. 132(C), pages 32-50.
    7. Andrea Baranzini & José V. Ramirez, 2005. "Paying for Quietness: The Impact of Noise on Geneva Rents," Urban Studies, Urban Studies Journal Limited, vol. 42(4), pages 633-646, April.
    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. Rainer Winkelmann & Stefan Boes, 2006. "Analysis of Microdata," Springer Books, Springer, number 978-3-540-29607-2, March.
    10. David G. Blanchflower & Andrew J. Oswald, 2004. "Money, Sex and Happiness: An Empirical Study," Scandinavian Journal of Economics, Wiley Blackwell, vol. 106(3), pages 393-415, October.
    11. Daniel Müller, 2005. "Stata in space: Econometric analysis of spatially explicit raster data," Stata Journal, StataCorp LLC, vol. 5(2), pages 224-238, June.
    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. Montizaan, Raymond M. & Vendrik, Maarten C.M., 2014. "Misery Loves Company: Exogenous shocks in retirement expectations and social comparison effects on subjective well-being," Journal of Economic Behavior & Organization, Elsevier, vol. 97(C), pages 1-26.
    2. McBride, Michael, 2010. "Money, happiness, and aspirations: An experimental study," Journal of Economic Behavior & Organization, Elsevier, vol. 74(3), pages 262-276, June.
    3. Bruno S. Frey & Anthony Gullo, 2021. "Does Sports Make People Happier, or Do Happy People More Sports?," Journal of Sports Economics, , vol. 22(4), pages 432-458, May.
    4. Bruno Frey, 2011. "Tullock challenges: happiness, revolutions, and democracy," Public Choice, Springer, vol. 148(3), pages 269-281, September.
    5. Hajdu, Tamás & Hajdu, Gábor, 2011. "A hasznosság és a relatív jövedelem kapcsolatának vizsgálata magyar adatok segítségével [Examining the relation of utility and relative income using Hungarian data]," Közgazdasági Szemle (Economic Review - monthly of the Hungarian Academy of Sciences), Közgazdasági Szemle Alapítvány (Economic Review Foundation), vol. 0(1), pages 56-73.
    6. Alexandra Nonnenmacher & Jürgen Friedrichs, 2013. "The Missing Link: Deficits of Country-Level Studies. A Review of 22 Articles Explaining Life Satisfaction," Social Indicators Research: An International and Interdisciplinary Journal for Quality-of-Life Measurement, Springer, vol. 110(3), pages 1221-1244, February.
    7. Rubén Arrondo & Ana Cárcaba & Eduardo González, 2021. "Drivers of Subjective Well-being in Spain: Are There Gender Differences?," Applied Research in Quality of Life, Springer;International Society for Quality-of-Life Studies, vol. 16(5), pages 2131-2154, October.
    8. Zhang, Yinjunjie & Xu, Zhicheng Phil & Palma, Marco A., "undated". "Misclassification Errors of Subjective Well-being: A New Approach to Mapping Happiness," 2017 Annual Meeting, July 30-August 1, Chicago, Illinois 258553, Agricultural and Applied Economics Association.
    9. Sarracino, Francesco, 2013. "Determinants of subjective well-being in high and low income countries: Do happiness equations differ across countries?," Journal of Behavioral and Experimental Economics (formerly The Journal of Socio-Economics), Elsevier, vol. 42(C), pages 51-66.
    10. Yamamura, Eiji, 2013. "Trial experience, satisfaction and incentive to bring another lawsuit: Does aspiration level influence winners and losers?," Japan and the World Economy, Elsevier, vol. 28(C), pages 125-131.
    11. Kamal Kasmaoui, 2020. "What makes Moroccans happy: A micro-data study," Working Papers hal-02956855, HAL.
    12. Van Praag, Bernard M.S. & Romanov, Dmitri & Ferrer-i-Carbonell, Ada, 2010. "Happiness and financial satisfaction in Israel: Effects of religiosity, ethnicity, and war," Journal of Economic Psychology, Elsevier, vol. 31(6), pages 1008-1020, December.
    13. Yamamura, Eiji, 2012. "Natural disasters and their long-term effect on happiness: the case of the great Hanshin-Awaji earthquake," MPRA Paper 37505, University Library of Munich, Germany.
    14. Zotti, Roberto & Speziale, Nino & Barra, Cristian, 2014. "On the causal effect of religion on life satisfaction using a propensity score matching technique," MPRA Paper 60066, University Library of Munich, Germany.
    15. Welsch, Heinz, 2009. "Implications of happiness research for environmental economics," Ecological Economics, Elsevier, vol. 68(11), pages 2735-2742, September.
    16. Blanchflower, David G & Oswald, Andrew, 2011. "International Happiness," CAGE Online Working Paper Series 39, Competitive Advantage in the Global Economy (CAGE).
    17. Luis Diaz‐Serrano & Andrés Rodríguez‐Pose, 2012. "Decentralization, Subjective Well‐Being, and the Perception of Institutions," Kyklos, Wiley Blackwell, vol. 65(2), pages 179-193, May.
    18. Rodríguez-Pose, Andrés & Diaz-Serrano, Luis, 2011. "Decentralization, Happiness, and the Perception of Institutions," CEPR Discussion Papers 8356, C.E.P.R. Discussion Papers.
    19. Roberta Distante, 2013. "Subjective Well-Being, Income and Relative Concerns in the UK," Social Indicators Research: An International and Interdisciplinary Journal for Quality-of-Life Measurement, Springer, vol. 113(1), pages 81-105, August.
    20. David G. Blanchflower, 2009. "International Evidence on Well-Being," NBER Chapters, in: Measuring the Subjective Well-Being of Nations: National Accounts of Time Use and Well-Being, pages 155-226, National Bureau of Economic Research, Inc.

    More about this item

    Keywords

    ;
    ;
    ;
    ;

    JEL classification:

    • R19 - Urban, Rural, Regional, Real Estate, and Transportation Economics - - General Regional Economics - - - Other
    • Q29 - Agricultural and Natural Resource Economics; Environmental and Ecological Economics - - Renewable Resources and Conservation - - - Other

    NEP fields

    This paper has been announced in the following NEP Reports:

    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:wiw:wiwrsa:ersa16p165. 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: Gunther Maier (email available below). General contact details of provider: http://www.ersa.org .

    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.