Deconstructing the Hedonic Treadmill: Is Happiness Autoregressive?

37 Pages Posted: 3 Sep 2008 Last revised: 23 Apr 2011

See all articles by Nicolas L. Bottan

Nicolas L. Bottan

Cornell University - Department of Policy Analysis and Management

Ricardo Perez-Truglia

University of California, Berkeley; National Bureau of Economic Research (NBER)

Date Written: October 1, 2009

Abstract

Affective habituation is well-documented in social sciences: people seem to adapt to many life events, ranging from lottery windfalls to terminal illnesses. A group of studies have tried to measure habituation by seeing how lagged values of life events affect present happiness. We propose an additional adaptation channel: current happiness may depend directly on past happiness, which amounts to assessing whether happiness is autoregressive. We run dynamic happiness regressions using individual-level panel data from the four large household panels. As in previous studies, the coefficients on lagged events (e.g., becoming unemployed, getting married) suggest habituation. However, all the econometric models suggest that the coefficient on lagged happiness is positive and significant. We discuss whether this may be evidence of happiness having an inertial force (besides the usual habituation channel).

Keywords: happiness, autoregressive, adaptation, dynamic panel

JEL Classification: D0, I31

Suggested Citation

Bottan, Nicolas Luis and Perez-Truglia, Ricardo, Deconstructing the Hedonic Treadmill: Is Happiness Autoregressive? (October 1, 2009). Available at SSRN: https://ssrn.com/abstract=1262569 or http://dx.doi.org/10.2139/ssrn.1262569

Nicolas Luis Bottan

Cornell University - Department of Policy Analysis and Management ( email )

Ithaca, NY
United States
6072555724 (Phone)

HOME PAGE: http://https://www.nicolasbottan.com

Ricardo Perez-Truglia (Contact Author)

University of California, Berkeley ( email )

310 Barrows Hall
Berkeley, CA 94720
United States

National Bureau of Economic Research (NBER) ( email )

1050 Massachusetts Avenue
Cambridge, MA 02138
United States

Do you have negative results from your research you’d like to share?

Paper statistics

Downloads
451
Abstract Views
3,656
Rank
117,669
PlumX Metrics