@techreport{15eaaf45b4cf4611924a00f41f0590b6,
title = "How important is Methodology for the Estimates of the Determinants of Happiness?",
abstract = "Psychologists and sociologists usually interpret answers to happiness surveys as cardinal and comparableacross respondents (Kahneman et al. 1999). As a result, these social scientists run OLS regressionson happiness and changes in happiness. Economists, on the other hand, usually only assume ordinalcomparability and have mainly used ordered latent response models. As a consequence, economists haveby and large not taken satisfactory account of fixed individual traits. We address this latter problemby developing a conditional estimator for the fixed-effect ordered logit model. The empirical findingspresented show that it makes virtually no difference whether one assumes ordinality or cardinality ofhappiness answers, whilst allowing for fixed-effects does change results substantially. This leads us toadvocate allowing for and endogenising the persistent personality traits that make up these fixed-effects.",
author = "Ada Ferrer-i-Carbonell and Paul Frijters",
year = "2002",
language = "English",
series = "Discussion paper TI",
publisher = "Tinbergen Instituut",
number = "02-024/3",
type = "WorkingPaper",
institution = "Tinbergen Instituut",
}