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ECONOMIC FREEDOM & HAPPINESS INEQUALITY: FRIENDS OR FOES?
Author(s) -
Bennett Daniel L.,
Nikolaev Boris
Publication year - 2017
Publication title -
contemporary economic policy
Language(s) - English
Resource type - Journals
SCImago Journal Rank - 0.454
H-Index - 49
eISSN - 1465-7287
pISSN - 1074-3529
DOI - 10.1111/coep.12190
Subject(s) - happiness , inequality , economic freedom , economics , economic inequality , gini coefficient , econometrics , demographic economics , social psychology , mathematics , psychology , mathematical analysis , market economy
This article examines the relationship between economic freedom and happiness inequality for a large sample of countries. We find that economic freedom is negatively associated with happiness inequality and robust to several alternative measures of happiness inequality, including the standard deviation, mean absolute difference, coefficient of variation, and Gini coefficient. Among the economic freedom areas, legal system and sound money are negatively correlated with happiness inequality. Drawing on the Engerman‐Sokoloff hypothesis, we use a measure of factor endowments as an instrument for economic freedom to provide a further robustness test, finding a negative association between economic freedom and happiness inequality. ( JEL D63, I31, P16)