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Do Danes and Italians Rate Life Satisfaction in the Same Way? Using Vignettes to Correct for Individual‐Specific Scale Biases
Author(s) -
Angelini Viola,
Cavapozzi Danilo,
Corazzini Luca,
Paccagnella Omar
Publication year - 2014
Publication title -
oxford bulletin of economics and statistics
Language(s) - English
Resource type - Journals
SCImago Journal Rank - 1.131
H-Index - 73
eISSN - 1468-0084
pISSN - 0305-9049
DOI - 10.1111/obes.12039
Subject(s) - scale (ratio) , life satisfaction , ranking (information retrieval) , phenomenon , psychology , raw data , econometrics , social psychology , statistics , mathematics , computer science , geography , artificial intelligence , physics , cartography , quantum mechanics
Self‐reported life satisfaction is highly heterogeneous across similar countries, a phenomenon that may be explained by the different scales and benchmarks that people use to evaluate themselves. This study uses cross‐sectional data gathered from older populations in ten European countries to compare estimates from a model that assumes reporting styles are constant across respondents against estimates from a model in which anchoring vignettes help correct for individual‐specific scale biases. Variations in response scales explain much of the difference in the raw data. Moreover, the cross‐country ranking in life satisfaction depends significantly on scale biases.