Figure A1. Fitting an Ordered Probit
-3 -2 -1 О 1 2 3
Subjective well-being, z~N(0,l)
Source: World Values Survey, 1981-2004.
Notes: Happiness question asks, “Taking all things together, would you say you are: ‘very happy,’ ‘quite happy,’ ‘not very
happy,’ [or] ‘not at all happy?’” Figure shows the assumed normal distribution of a latent happiness variable when running an
ordered probit regression; by a standard normalization, this distribution has a mean of zero and a standard deviation of one.
Dashed lines represent the cutpoints estimated from running an ordered probit regression of happiness on country × wave fixed
effects. Thus the country × wave fixed effects are equivalent to scoring “not at all happy” as -1.460, “not very happy” as -0.313,
“quite happy” as 0.839, and “very happy” as 2.256.
Figures—24