Revisiting the Income-Happiness Paradox: the Case of Taiwan and Malaysia

Since the last two decades, economic studies on income-happiness paradox or Easterlin paradox have grown rapidly due to its significant policy implications. However, the paradox is yet to be explored adequately in Taiwan and Malaysia. Using World Values Survey (WVS) data of Taiwan and Malaysia, thi...

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主要な著者: Lim, Hock Eam, Diage, Shaw, Liao, Pei-Shan
フォーマット: Conference or Workshop Item
言語:English
主題:
オンライン・アクセス:https://repo.uum.edu.my/id/eprint/25115/1/ECoFi%202016%20179-187.PDF
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author Lim, Hock Eam
Diage, Shaw
Liao, Pei-Shan
author_facet Lim, Hock Eam
Diage, Shaw
Liao, Pei-Shan
author_sort Lim, Hock Eam
collection UUM
description Since the last two decades, economic studies on income-happiness paradox or Easterlin paradox have grown rapidly due to its significant policy implications. However, the paradox is yet to be explored adequately in Taiwan and Malaysia. Using World Values Survey (WVS) data of Taiwan and Malaysia, this paper aims to examine the existence of Easterlin paradox and estimate the drivers of happiness. Overall, the Taiwanese and Malaysians are happy with their life. Nevertheless, Malaysians are found to be happier than Taiwanese. There is no sufficient evidence on the existence of income-happiness paradox in Taiwan and Malaysia. Results of the estimated regression models reveal that income in Taiwan has larger effects on happiness than Malaysia. In Taiwan, an increase of one unit income (i.e., moving up by one decile income group) will increase the odds of being happier by around 30%; in Malaysia, it is around 20%. The drivers of happiness in Malaysia are: income, health status, marital status, employment tatus, religious (these drivers are similar to Taiwan), income equality and materialist (these driven are different from Taiwan). Thus, Taiwan and Malaysia shares a similar and different set of drivers of happiness. Thus, the government policies that to improve the happiness should target at the appropriate drivers of happiness.
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spelling uum-251152018-12-11T02:36:59Z https://repo.uum.edu.my/id/eprint/25115/ Revisiting the Income-Happiness Paradox: the Case of Taiwan and Malaysia Lim, Hock Eam Diage, Shaw Liao, Pei-Shan HB Economic Theory Since the last two decades, economic studies on income-happiness paradox or Easterlin paradox have grown rapidly due to its significant policy implications. However, the paradox is yet to be explored adequately in Taiwan and Malaysia. Using World Values Survey (WVS) data of Taiwan and Malaysia, this paper aims to examine the existence of Easterlin paradox and estimate the drivers of happiness. Overall, the Taiwanese and Malaysians are happy with their life. Nevertheless, Malaysians are found to be happier than Taiwanese. There is no sufficient evidence on the existence of income-happiness paradox in Taiwan and Malaysia. Results of the estimated regression models reveal that income in Taiwan has larger effects on happiness than Malaysia. In Taiwan, an increase of one unit income (i.e., moving up by one decile income group) will increase the odds of being happier by around 30%; in Malaysia, it is around 20%. The drivers of happiness in Malaysia are: income, health status, marital status, employment tatus, religious (these drivers are similar to Taiwan), income equality and materialist (these driven are different from Taiwan). Thus, Taiwan and Malaysia shares a similar and different set of drivers of happiness. Thus, the government policies that to improve the happiness should target at the appropriate drivers of happiness. Conference or Workshop Item PeerReviewed application/pdf en https://repo.uum.edu.my/id/eprint/25115/1/ECoFi%202016%20179-187.PDF Lim, Hock Eam and Diage, Shaw and Liao, Pei-Shan Revisiting the Income-Happiness Paradox: the Case of Taiwan and Malaysia. In: 3rd Annual ECoFI Symposium 2016, 18-19 Dicember 2016, Universiti Utara Malaysia,Kedah.
spellingShingle HB Economic Theory
Lim, Hock Eam
Diage, Shaw
Liao, Pei-Shan
Revisiting the Income-Happiness Paradox: the Case of Taiwan and Malaysia
title Revisiting the Income-Happiness Paradox: the Case of Taiwan and Malaysia
title_full Revisiting the Income-Happiness Paradox: the Case of Taiwan and Malaysia
title_fullStr Revisiting the Income-Happiness Paradox: the Case of Taiwan and Malaysia
title_full_unstemmed Revisiting the Income-Happiness Paradox: the Case of Taiwan and Malaysia
title_short Revisiting the Income-Happiness Paradox: the Case of Taiwan and Malaysia
title_sort revisiting the income happiness paradox the case of taiwan and malaysia
topic HB Economic Theory
url https://repo.uum.edu.my/id/eprint/25115/1/ECoFi%202016%20179-187.PDF
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