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Cross-country determinants of life satisfaction: exploring different determinants across groups in society

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Abstract

This paper explores a wide range of cross-country determinants of life satisfaction exploiting a database of 90,000 observations in 70 countries. We distinguish four groups of aggregate variables as potential determinants of satisfaction: political, economic, institutional, and human development and culture. We use ordered probit to investigate the importance of these variables on individual life satisfaction and test the robustness of our results with Extreme Bounds Analysis. The results show that only a small number of factors, such as openness, business climate, postcommunism, the number of chambers in parliament, Christian majority, and infant mortality, robustly influence life satisfaction across countries while the importance of many variables suggested in the previous literature is not confirmed. This remains largely true when the analysis splits national populations according to gender, income, and political orientation also.

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Authors and Affiliations

  1. Aarhus School of Business, Aarhus, Denmark

    Christian Bjørnskov

  2. KOF Swiss Economic Institute, ETH Zurich, Weinbergstrasse 35, 8092, Zürich, Switzerland

    Axel Dreher

  3. Hoover Institution, Stanford University, Stanford, USA

    Justina A. V. Fischer

Authors
  1. Christian Bjørnskov
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  2. Axel Dreher
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  3. Justina A. V. Fischer
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Corresponding author

Correspondence to Axel Dreher.

Additional information

We thank Stephen Lea, participants at the 30th IAREP conference in Prague and the referees of this journal for comments on earlier versions. Gilles Winkler provided excellent research assistance.

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Bjørnskov, C., Dreher, A. & Fischer, J.A.V. Cross-country determinants of life satisfaction: exploring different determinants across groups in society. Soc Choice Welfare 30, 119–173 (2008). https://doi.org/10.1007/s00355-007-0225-4

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