Healthy,Wealthy, and Happy: The Joint Role of Health and Income in Explaining Global Life Satisfaction

Based on Gallup World Poll data, we explore the heterogeneous evolution of income, health, and well-being within world population subgroups identified according to country, gender, age, and education, offering an integrated approach with wide geographical coverage. We provide novel evidence on the global “winners” and “losers” in life satisfaction between 2009 and 2018, showing that individuals located at the bottom of the global income distribution and those with poor health saw pronounced reductions in life satisfaction as opposed to populations with incomes falling between the 60th and the 80th centile and the healthy ones, who experienced significant improvements. Our results highlight that health is at least on a par with income in explaining life satisfaction, although there are considerable differences across world regions. In particular, health supersedes income in its relevance to life satisfaction, mostly in more affluent world regions, while the opposite holds in destitute parts of the world.     

Reference Income Effects in the Determination of Equivalence Scales Using Income Satisfaction Data

We estimate household equivalence scales, i.e. the needs of additional adults and children relative to a single adult, using income satisfaction data from the German Socio‐Economic Panel. We extend previous studies applying this approach by taking reference income into account. This allows separating needs‐based from reference effects in the determination of income satisfaction. We show that this adjustment helps to overcome a bias causing an overestimation of adults’ and an underestimation of children’s needs‐based equivalence weights. Our results indicate that controlling for income comparisons substantially increases children’s equivalence weight relative to that of adults.     

The Implications for Health,Depression, and Life Satisfaction from a Permanent Increase in Income for the Disadvantaged Elderly: Evidence from Taiwan

This paper uses an exogenous increase in income for a specific subgroup to explore the extent to which higher income leads to higher levels of health and well-being. In 1995, the Taiwanese government implemented the Senior Farmer Welfare Benefit Interim Regulation (SFWBIR) that was a pure cash injection to senior farmers. A difference-in-differences (DiD) approach is used on survey data from the Taiwanese Health and Living Status of Elderly in 1989 and 1996 to evaluate the short-term effect of the SFWBIR on self-assessed health, depression, and life satisfaction (LS). Senior manufacturing workers are employed as a comparison group for senior farmers in the natural experiment. This paper provides evidence that the increase in income caused by this pension reform significantly improved the mental health of senior farmers by reducing 1.697 points of the depression scale in DiD and 2.178 points in the robust estimation; however, it had no significant short-term impact on self-assessed health or LS.     

Religiosity,Economics and Life Satisfaction

This paper uses a large individual data set from the Euro Barometer Survey (ICPSR 1993 Interuniversity Consortium for Political and Economic Research (ICPSR) 1993 Euro-Barometer Surveys Ann Arbor: University of Michigan  ) to estimate the influence of religious phenomena on self-perceived satisfaction of an individual, controlling for macroeconomic conditions, effects of his political stance, and other socio-economic variables. Our estimated ordered logit model results show that an individual's life satisfaction is positively related to measures of strong religious attachment in the sense of being willing to commit to attending religious services frequently. Our other findings include that no strong evidence exists for the hypothesis that leftists suffer more from income inequality.     

税收与收入分配:基于发展中国家个人所得税的思考

对于税收分配作用的不同理解和看法导致了税制设计方案的差异。发达国家普遍采用的累进综合个人所得税在发展中国家里面临着更高的管理成本、遵从成本、经济效率成本和政治成本,因而可能不是发展中国家实现收入分配职能的最优策略。对于中国而言,未来个人所得税的改革方向应当是在合理确定劳动所得和资本所得税负水平的基础上,根据纳税人家庭人口数量及就业状况对费用减除标准加以细分。在商品税方面,对日常生活必需品和农业生产资料免征增值税,将更多奢侈品纳入消费税的征收范围,并对与低收入群体日常生活密切相关的服务项目免征营业税。     

Income comparison,gender roles and life satisfaction

This article uses data from the German Socio-Economic Panel to analyse the effect of within household income comparison on individual life satisfaction. Our within couple and individual fixed-effects panel estimates suggest that gender roles influence subjective well-being (SWB). A primary breadwinner wife decreases a couple’s individual happiness by eight per cent. The article adds to the findings on interdependence of SWB and hints at negative consequences of traditional gender identity norms for individual happiness.     

试论调控个人收入分配的财税政策选择

根据实际情况，我国政府调控个人收入分配，在财政政策方面，应加快完善社会保障制度，加大转移支付力度，缩小地区经济差距，加大扶贫投入的力度；在税收政策方面，应进一步完善个人所得税制度，适时开征遗产税与赠与税，加强特别消费税的作用，建立个人财产税制，适时开征社会保障税。     

Life Satisfaction and Longevity: Longitudinal Evidence from the German Socio‐Economic Panel

We investigate the relationship between life satisfaction and mortality using the German Socio‐Economic Panel, which allows us to follow around 15,000 people for more than two decades. Seventeen per cent of the respondents surveyed in 1984 died between 1984 and 2007. After controlling for initial health conditions, we find that people's life satisfaction at the beginning of the survey is deeply linked to their life expectancy: a ten per cent increase in life satisfaction is connected to a four per cent decline in the probability of death in the period studied. The relationship between life satisfaction and mortality is stronger for the married and the men but life satisfaction does not matter for the women. We find some suggestive evidence that links between life satisfaction and mortality could be operating via accidents and mental health. Finally, we show that the life satisfaction measured in 1984 extends to the rest of life: people who were happier in 1984 more frequently experienced high levels of happiness in the rest of their lives. These results suggest that life satisfaction is a powerful risk‐factor for later mortality and is more predictive of mortality than a host of other variables.     

个人所得税价值目标模式的选择

随着我国社会经济的发展和收入水平的提高,个人所得税的不适应及其修改逐渐纳入了人们的视野。虽然在此之前已经对个人所得税法进行了几次修订,但总体问题并未得到解决。而有关个人所得税价值目标的选择是关系到个人所得税立法走向的重大问题。     

上海高龄体弱老人家庭亲属照顾者的生活满意度:照顾资源的作用

对上海城区697对75岁及以上的体弱老人及其家庭亲属照顾者作了抽样调查和统计分析。家庭亲属照顾者的照顾资源是影响高龄体弱老人生活满意度的显著因素。经济资源充分、家庭和朋友支持充足、健康自评相对好、运用积极应对策略的照顾者有较高的生活满意度。要提升家庭亲属照顾者的心理健康,首要的任务之-是增强照顾资源,包括经济的、健康的、心理的、社会的资源。     

基于居民生活满意度的城市景观经济价值评价——以大连市为例

基于大连市的调研数据,利用生活满意度数据,探索了城市景观质量对居民效用的影响,进而使用有序Probit模型测算城市景观的经济价值。结果表明:城市景观质量对居民的生活满意度具有显著的正向影响;以十分制定位景观评价标准,每年每户居民对单位城市景观质量改善的意愿支付为26282元;相对于低收入群体,较高收入群体对城市景观质量的变化更为敏感;当城市景观质量实现由Ⅰ级向Ⅱ级的改善时,居民的支付意愿最强,可达到96807元;随着城市景观质量等级的升高,家庭的边际支付意愿明显下降,反映出处在较低质量景观状态中的居民具有更强烈的景观改善意愿。     

Beyond Income and Wealth

This paper proposes four criteria for the selection of a better measure of living standards: it should be comprehensive, correlation sensitive, preference based, and fairness based. These criteria are applied to the following measures: income, equivalent income, capabilities, and satisfaction. The paper then explores the relationship between the space of goods and services, the space of budgets, and the more fundamental space of the aspects of life that people really care about. The importance of the fairness principles guiding interpersonal comparisons is highlighted.     

生态环境、经济收入与公众健康的关系——基于我国29个省市区面板数据的经验研究

公众的健康水平受到其所处自然和社会环境的共同影响,文章利用我国29个省市区的面板数据,构建了同时包含生态环境与经济收入因素的公众健康影响模型,检验了生态环境污染、治理状况以及经济收入、收入不均对人口健康的影响。研究结果表明,环境污染已经威胁到人们的健康,而污染治理投入能缓解污染的危害,同时收入公平性比绝对收入水平对健康影响更大。最后,在此基础上指出走人与自然协调、社会公平发展道路的重要意义。     

中国省际城乡收入差距的来源贡献度分析

中国各省市城乡收入差距在1997～2009年总体呈上升趋势,经济欠发达省市较沿海省市城乡收入差距问题更严重。收入差距来源分解结果显示:工资性收入差距对城乡收入差距的贡献度最高,经营性收入和转移性收入差距的贡献度呈现此消彼长的趋势,财产性收入差距影响微乎其微。缩小城乡收入差距的主要措施是提高教育水平的同时,保证实现城乡教育公平、城乡公共服务均等化和有序稳定推进城市化进程。     

个人所得税改革中的马太效应及其矫正

在中国,个人所得税是通过累进的个人所得税调节收入分配,调节高收入者的收入水平,以期缩小贫富差距,逐步实现趋于社会公平的收入分配方式。然而就中国现状来看,它不仅没有起到公平收入分配的调节作用,而且也在一定程度上放大了贫富差距的“马太效应”。因此,中国个人所得税模式改革取向,应是个人所得税的工具能发挥更好的作用。     

Life satisfaction and self-employment in different types of occupations

In this research, we investigate whether a positive relationship between life satisfaction and self-employment (versus paid employment) exists while simultaneously considering two occupational dimensions: white-collar versus blue-collar work and high-skilled versus low-skilled work. Using Eurobarometer data for a large number of European countries (2008–2012), our findings confirm that self-employed workers are more satisfied with their lives than paid employees are. A life satisfaction premium is also found when the self-employed and paid employees are compared within similar occupations in terms of collar type and skill level. Finally, self-employment can help to overcome low life satisfaction scores associated with blue-collar and low-skilled work.     

个人所得税税率的国际比较及其对中国的启示——以美英两国为样本

20世纪80年代以来,以“降低税率、减少级距”为主要内容的个人所得税税率改革已是大势所趋,中国目前的个人所得税税率未能很好地起到调节收入的作用,我们可以借鉴美英两国个人所得税税率改革过程的经验,结合中国国情,通过对免征额和初始税率、最高边际税率累进数及管理成本等因素的确定,选择有波动的减速累进路线。     

Lags and Leads in Life Satisfaction in Korea: When Gender Matters

Using detailed longitudinal data from the Korean Labor and Income Panel Study (KLIPS) from 1998 to 2008, this paper finds significant gender differences in impacts as well as adaptation patterns to major life and labor market events in Korea. Men remain on a higher happiness level throughout marriage, while women return to their baseline happiness within only two years. Consequently, men suffer more from divorce and the death of a spouse. This marital gender happiness gap is equivalent to a (husband only) increase of annual per capita household income of approximately US$17,800. The study further finds that men suffer more from unemployment. Results are robust to the inclusion of multiple simultaneous events and the use of different estimators.     

Life Course Perspective on Economic Shocks and Income Inequality Through Age-Period-Cohort Analysis: Evidence From Finland

Utilizing age-period-cohort analysis, this paper examines the development of income distribution across periodic economic fluctuations in relation to cohorts and age groups. The empirical analysis is based on the Finnish Income Distribution Statistics and Household Expenditure Surveys covering the period of 1966–2015. The findings suggest that the period and cohort effects can be identified as the main effects on relative income, while the age effects have no meaningful impact when the control variables are taken into account. This result reveals a connection between the effects of economic shocks and cohort placement on labor market entry. Additionally, absolute income analysis suggests that economic shocks create stagnation points in income development, which are especially detrimental to cohorts who are transitioning into labor markets. Additionally, middle-income attainment has not changed due to periodic shocks but rather is related to inter-cohort inequalities and relative income differences, where the baby boomer generation is a clear winner.