Do reference values matter? Some notes and extensions on ""income and happiness across Europe""

dc.contributor.author	Drichoutis, AC	en
dc.contributor.author	Nayga, RM	en
dc.contributor.author	Lazaridis, P	en
dc.date.accessioned	2014-06-06T06:50:12Z
dc.date.available	2014-06-06T06:50:12Z
dc.date.issued	2010	en
dc.identifier.issn	01674870	en
dc.identifier.uri	http://dx.doi.org/10.1016/j.joep.2010.02.003	en
dc.identifier.uri	http://62.217.125.90/xmlui/handle/123456789/4997
dc.subject	Comparison income	en
dc.subject	Happiness	en
dc.subject	Life satisfaction	en
dc.subject	Reference groups	en
dc.title	Do reference values matter? Some notes and extensions on ""income and happiness across Europe""	en
heal.type	journalArticle	en
heal.identifier.primary	10.1016/j.joep.2010.02.003	en
heal.publicationDate	2010	en
heal.abstract	We add to the analysis conducted in an article in this journal authored by Caporale, Georgellis, Tsitsianis, and Yin (2009) (hereafter CGTY) which assessed the relationship between subjective well-being, income and relative income in Europe. Specifically, we note some data management, model/variable specification, and econometric issues that can affect the validity of the findings of CGTY. We then present our own augmented model to test the robustness of the results from the CGTY study. When we try to replicate CGTY's estimation, we find that the main variable of interest, i.e. the reference income variable, reverts sign. We also find several differences in our results, the most important of which is that, in contrast to CGTY's result that suggests a statistically significant negative reference income effect on life satisfaction, reference income does not really significantly affect life satisfaction in our estimations. © 2010 Elsevier B.V.	en
heal.journalName	Journal of Economic Psychology	en
dc.identifier.issue	4	en
dc.identifier.volume	31	en
dc.identifier.doi	10.1016/j.joep.2010.02.003	en
dc.identifier.spage	479	en
dc.identifier.epage	486	en