Is It Culture or Democracy? The Impact of Democracy and Culture on Happiness
Journal
Social Indicators Research
ISSN
0303-8300
ISSN-Digital
1573-0921
Type
journal article
Date Issued
2007-07-01
Author(s)
Abstract
We look at the relation between democracy and perceived subjective well-being, taking also into account the impact of income and culture. After briefly reviewing the empirical results for Switzerland, we re-estimate this relationship allowing for the relative income position of individuals and also using a new more recent data from the Swiss Household Panel. No robust relationship between the extent of (direct) democracy and happiness can be observed. In a second step, we conduct a cross-national analysis, covering 28 countries with data from the 1998 International Social Survey Programme (ISSP). There we observe a robust positive and significant relationship between democracy and happiness.
Language
English
Keywords
Welfare
Public Economics
Direct democracy
happiness
Institutions
HSG Classification
contribution to scientific community
Refereed
Yes
Publisher
Springer
Publisher place
Dordrecht
Volume
82
Number
3
Start page
505
End page
526
Pages
22
Subject(s)
Eprints ID
21242