<abstract xmlns="http://www.w3.org/1999/xhtml"><p>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).</p></abstract>

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).

Policies for Happiness in the Global Village

West University of Timisoara, Faculty of Economics and Business Administration, Blvd. Pestalozzi 16, Timisoara 300115,

Journal of Heterodox Economics

This work is licensed under the Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-NoDerivatives 3.0 License.

{"article-title":"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...

Policies for Happiness in the Global Village

Publié en ligne: 18 avr. 2017

Pages: 17 - 53

DOI: https://doi.org/10.1515/jheec-2016-0002

Mots clés
life satisfaction, public governance, Worldwide Governance Indicators, KOF index of globalization

© 2016 Bogdan Dima et al., published by De Gruyter Open

This work is licensed under the Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-NoDerivatives 3.0 License.

Policies for Happiness in the Global Village

Publié en ligne: 18 avr. 2017

Pages: 17 - 53

DOI: https://doi.org/10.1515/jheec-2016-0002

Mots cléslife satisfaction, public governance, Worldwide Governance Indicators, KOF index of globalization

© 2016 Bogdan Dima et al., published by De Gruyter Open

This work is licensed under the Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-NoDerivatives 3.0 License.

Mots clés
life satisfaction, public governance, Worldwide Governance Indicators, KOF index of globalization