As before, we estimate average well-being in a country-wave as the coefficient from an ordered probit regression of well-
being on a saturated set of country by wave fixed effects. Arrows link each individual country’s change in well-being-
GDP space over time, and so the slope of each arrow corresponds to the well-being-income gradient derived from two
consecutive observations in a country’s national time series (dotted arrows connect points where the sampling frame
changed, and hence valid time series comparisons cannot be made).
Several points are evident from Figure 14. First, there appears to be a general tendency for economic growth to be
accompanied by growth in subjective well-being (arrows tend to point northeast), and economic decline, which is most
visible in the former Eastern bloc, has been accompanied by a decline in well-being (arrows pointing southwest). Of the
89 changes shown in the left-hand panel of Figure 14, happiness and GDP per capita change in the same direction in 62
cases(53 show growth in both; 9 show declines), whereas they move in opposite directions in 27 (of which 20 reflect
economic growth unaccompanied by growth in happiness, and 7 reflect growing happiness despite economic decline). The
life satisfaction data in the right-hand panel yield much weaker results, with satisfaction and GDP per capita moving in
the same direction in only 46 of 90 cases, reflecting generally weaker measured life satisfaction in the two most recent
waves of the survey (more on this below).
Second, when we average across these country-specific estimates, the well-being-income link within countries
through time appears to be roughly similar to that estimated from the pooled cross-country, cross-time variation (shown as
the dashed line in each panel). Third, substantial heterogeneity remains in these estimated responses, although this may
reflect the influence of other factors on measured well-being.
Finally, these time-series changes are strongly influenced by the result of common patterns across countries
observed in specific waves. We suspect that the trend in life satisfaction has been distorted by changes in question
ordering. In particular, in the 1994-99 and 1999-2004 waves, the life satisfaction question was preceded by a question
asking “How satisfied are you with the financial situation of your household?” Respondents typically rate their financial
satisfaction substantially lower than their life satisfaction (on the same 1-10 scale, responses average about one point
lower), and hence this question may have influenced how respondents subsequently reported their life satisfaction. To
check this, we assess the (raw) correlation between life satisfaction and financial satisfaction for the eight countries with
representative samples in each round of the World Values Survey; this correlation was 0.53 and 0.57 in the two most
recent waves, significantly above previous levels (0.45 in the first wave and 0.43 in the second). The happiness question
was never proximate to the financial satisfaction question, and the correlation of happiness with financial satisfaction was
quite stable across each of the waves (it was recorded as 0.29, 0.30, 0.32 and 0.29 from the earliest to the latest wave).
Similarly, in the 1994-99 and 1999-2004 waves, the happiness question was by a battery of questions probing the
importance of friends, family, leisure, politics and religion, and a similar analysis reveals that the correlation of measured
happiness with these variables rose. If these questions prime positive thoughts, this question-order change may have
inflated measured happiness in the past two waves.
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