– The purpose of this paper is to investigate the dynamics between gross domestic product (GDP), environmental degradation and happiness, by using country-level panel-data covering 23 countries, for the period 1961-2005.
– For the analysis the authors employed the vector autoregression (VAR) approach in a panel framework.
– The main results show that a high level of happiness is associated with a low level of GDP on short term (one year). The joint influence of GDP and environmental degradation on happiness is not significant, while GDP and happiness are unrelated to environmental degradation.
– The paper extends the literature on developed countries and offers a particular perspective on the relationship between environment degradation and happiness through a GDP growth impulse analysis.
– The paper offers two main novelties: it simultaneously investigates the “well-being – environment”, and “well-being – economic dimension”, and it uses a panel-VAR approach, including the cross-country variation.
