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Buying happiness in an unequal world : rank of income more strongly predicts well-being in more unequal countries
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Machia, Lucia, Plagnol, Anke and Powdthavee, Nattavudh (2020) Buying happiness in an unequal world : rank of income more strongly predicts well-being in more unequal countries. Personality and Social Psychology Bulletin, 46 (5). pp. 769-780. doi:10.1177/0146167219877413 ISSN 0146-1672.
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Official URL: https://doi.org/10.1177/0146167219877413
Abstract
Does income rank matter more for well-being in more unequal countries? Using more than 160,000 observations from 24 countries worldwide, we replicate previous studies and show that the ranked position of an individual’s income strongly predicts life evaluation and positive daily emotional experiences, whereas absolute and reference income generally have weak or no effects. Furthermore, we find the association between income rank and an individual’s well-being to be significantly larger in countries where income inequality, represented by the share of taxable income held by the top 1% of income earners, is high. These results are robust to using an alternative measure of income inequality and different reference group specifications. Our findings suggest that people in more unequal societies place greater weight on the pursuit of higher income ranks, which may contribute to enduring income inequality in places where greater well-being can be bought from moving up the income ladder.
Item Type: | Journal Article | ||||||||
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Subjects: | H Social Sciences > HB Economic Theory | ||||||||
Divisions: | Faculty of Social Sciences > Warwick Business School > Behavioural Science Faculty of Social Sciences > Warwick Business School |
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Library of Congress Subject Headings (LCSH): | Happiness -- Economic aspects, Equality -- Economic aspects, Social values, Income distribution, Economics -- Psychological aspects, Quality of life, Well-being | ||||||||
Journal or Publication Title: | Personality and Social Psychology Bulletin | ||||||||
Publisher: | Sage Publications Ltd. | ||||||||
ISSN: | 0146-1672 | ||||||||
Official Date: | 1 May 2020 | ||||||||
Dates: |
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Volume: | 46 | ||||||||
Number: | 5 | ||||||||
Page Range: | pp. 769-780 | ||||||||
DOI: | 10.1177/0146167219877413 | ||||||||
Status: | Peer Reviewed | ||||||||
Publication Status: | Published | ||||||||
Reuse Statement (publisher, data, author rights): | Posted ahead of print. Machia, Lucia, Plagnol, Anke and Powdthavee, Nattavudh (2019) Buying happiness in an unequal world : rank of income more strongly predicts well-being in more unequal countries. Personality and Social Psychology Bulletin . (In Press). Copyright © 2019 by Society for Personality and Social Psychology. Reprinted by permission of SAGE Publications. https://journals.sagepub.com/home/psp | ||||||||
Access rights to Published version: | Restricted or Subscription Access | ||||||||
Date of first compliant deposit: | 16 August 2019 | ||||||||
Date of first compliant Open Access: | 16 August 2019 | ||||||||
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