Policies for Happiness in the Global Village

This article employs three different measures of life satisfaction viewed as proxy for social utility, in order to test for the possible non-linear interactions between the quality of public governance, as reflected by the World Bank indicators, and globalization, as captured by the KOF index, for a...

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Bibliographic Details
Published inJournal of heterodox economics Vol. 3; no. 1; pp. 17 - 53
Main Authors Dima, Bogdan, Dima, Ştefana Maria
Format Journal Article
LanguageEnglish
Published De Gruyter Open 01.06.2016
Subjects
E02
F60
I31
KOF index of globalization
life satisfaction
public governance
Worldwide Governance Indicators
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Summary:This article employs three different measures of life satisfaction viewed as proxy for social utility, in order to test for the possible non-linear interactions between the quality of public governance, as reflected by the World Bank indicators, and globalization, as captured by the KOF index, for a dataset of 99 countries for a time span between 2001 and 2010. We conclude that efficient and trustworthy public policies may enhance life satisfaction. Moreover, there may occur a synergy effect between ‘good’ governance and globalization (especially for those components describing social globalization), while there is no substitute for the failure of public policies, in terms of human development and growth (with the effects on human development being substantially more important than those corresponding to the increase in national wealth).
ISSN:2344-4150
2344-4150
DOI:10.1515/jheec-2016-0002