Life satisfaction and austerity: expectations and the macroeconomy

Brown, Sarah, Kontonikas, Alexandros, Montagnoli, Alberto, Moro, Mirko and Onnis, Luisanna 2021. Life satisfaction and austerity: expectations and the macroeconomy. Journal of Behavioral and Experimental Economics 95 , 101780. 10.1016/j.socec.2021.101780

Full text not available from this repository.

Abstract

We examine the linkages between fiscal austerity and life satisfaction across twelve European countries using a sample of repeated cross-sections of individuals from 1999 to 2014. Austerity policies may trigger several responses at both the macro and micro-level, which in turn may affect life satisfaction directly or indirectly. We employ mediation analysis to account for these complex relationships linking austerity to an individual’s life satisfaction, their economic expectations and their likelihood of unemployment. We find that austerity policies primarily affect individual life satisfaction via the economic expectations channel. Austerity dampens optimism about the future and this response has a negative effect on life satisfaction across a range of measures of economic expectations. In addition, our results suggest that changes in government expenditure, as opposed to taxation, matter for life satisfaction.

Item Type:	Article
Date Type:	Publication
Status:	Published
Schools:	Business (Including Economics)
Publisher:	Elsevier
ISSN:	2214-8043
Date of Acceptance:	3 October 2021
Last Modified:	05 May 2022 11:30
URI:	https://orca.cardiff.ac.uk/id/eprint/149457

Actions (repository staff only)

Edit Item