What explains life satisfaction? Relative income or rank income? The case of Ecuador

We test whether various measures of relative income and rank income hypothesis explain life satisfaction in Ecuador. We found robust evidence that the rank position of the income within the reference group explains life satisfaction. In contrast, the effect of relative income measures on happiness i...

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Bibliographic Details
Published in:Applied economics letters Vol. 29; no. 3; pp. 195 - 199
Main Authors: Acosta-González, Hugo Nicolás, Marcenaro-Gutiérrez, Oscar David
Format: Journal Article
Language:English
Published: London Routledge 06-02-2022
Taylor & Francis LLC
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Summary:We test whether various measures of relative income and rank income hypothesis explain life satisfaction in Ecuador. We found robust evidence that the rank position of the income within the reference group explains life satisfaction. In contrast, the effect of relative income measures on happiness is sensitive to the variables used to construct the reference group.
ISSN:1350-4851
1466-4291
DOI:10.1080/13504851.2020.1861193