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Twins, income, and happiness: Evidence from China
Maoliang Ye1, Junsen Zhang2, Hongbin Li3
1School of Business, Southern University of Science and Technology, Shenzhen 518055, China.
Abstract:
We estimate the causal effect of income on happiness using a unique dataset of Chinese twins. This allows us to address omitted variable bias and measurement errors. Our findings show that individual income has a large positive effect on happiness, with a doubling of income resulting in an increase of 0.26 scales or 0.37 SDs in the four-scale happiness measure. We also find that income matters most for males and the middle-aged. Our results highlight the importance of accounting for various biases when studying the relationship between socioeconomic status and subjective well-being.
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