The regional heterogeneity of wellbeing “expenditure” preferences: evidence from a simulated allocation choice on the BES indicators

Becchetti, Leonardo; Corrado, Luisa; Fiaschetti, Maurizio

Abstract

With an online survey on major Italian newspapers we ask respondents to simulate the typical policymaker decision, that is, the dilemma of allocating scarce financial resources among alternative competing goals using the domains of the newly defined Italian BES (sustainable and equitable wellbeing) indicators. Our main finding is that homogeneity of choices is rejected since preferred allocations are strongly affected by socio-demographic factors and mainly by political orientation, age, education and gender. An important related result is that education and political orientation significantly affect preferences toward sustainable development. We as well find that respondents' expenditure preferences on a given BES domain are mainly affected by the relative scarcity/abundance of wellbeing on that given domain at the regional level.

Citation

Becchetti, L., Corrado, L., & Fiaschetti, M. (2017). The regional heterogeneity of wellbeing “expenditure” preferences: evidence from a simulated allocation choice on the BES indicators. Journal of Economic Geography, 17(4), 857-891. https://doi.org/10.1093/jeg/lbw042

• Journal Article Type: Article
• Acceptance Date: Oct 4, 2016
• Online Publication Date: Dec 6, 2016
• Publication Date: Jul 1, 2017
• Deposit Date: Nov 28, 2016
• Publicly Available Date: Nov 28, 2016
• Journal: Journal of Economic Geography
• Print ISSN: 1468-2702
• Electronic ISSN: 1468-2710
• Publisher: Oxford University Press
• Peer Reviewed: Peer Reviewed
• Volume: 17
• Issue: 4
• Pages: 857-891
• DOI: https://doi.org/10.1093/jeg/lbw042
• Keywords: Regional wellbeing indicators, political preferences, wellbeing preferences
• Additional Information: References : Ahn, J., Lee, J., Kim, T. (2006), An Analysis of Consumer Preferences among Wireless LAN and Mobile Internet Services, ETRI Journal, 28: 205-215. Alesina, A., Angeletos, G. M. (2005), Fairness and redistribution, American Economic Review. 95: 913-935. Alesina, A., Glaeser, E. (2004), Fighting poverty in the US and Europe: A world of difference, Oxford: Oxford University Press. Anand, P., Durand, M., Heckman J., (2011), The Measurement of progress –some achivements and challenges, Journal of the Royal Statistical Society A, 174:851-855 Author citation (2012), Title, Journal of Economic Geography. Atkinson, S., Fleuret, S. (2007), Wellbeing, health and geography: A critical review and research agenda, New Zealand Geographer 63: 106-118. Bartolini, S., Bilancini, E., Pugno, M. (2008), Did the decline in social capital decrease American happiness? A relational explanation of the happiness paradox, University of Siena Dept of Economics Working Paper 513. Bayer, P., Ross, S. L. (2006), Identifying individual and group effects in the presence of sorting: a neighborhood effects application, NBER Working Paper 12211, National Bureau of Economic Research, Inc. Author citation (2013a), Title, Journal of Socio-Economics. Beggs, S., Cardell, S., Hausman, J. (1981), Assessing the Potential Demand for Electric Cars, Journal of Econometrics, 16: 1-19. Bélanger, É., Lewis-Beck, M. S., Nadeau, R. (2013), Economics and Elections Revisited, Comparative Political Studies. 46: 551-573. Bénabou, R. (1996), Heterogeneity, Stratification, and Growth: Macroeconomic Implications of Community Structure and School Finance, The American Economic Review, 86: 584-609. Bruni, L., Stanca, L. (2008), Watching alone: Relational Goods, Television and Happiness, Journal of Economic Behavior and Organization, 65: 506–528. Calfee, J., Winston, C., Stempski, R. (2001), Econometric Issues in Estimating Consumer Preferences From Stated Preference Data: A Case Study of the Value of Automobile Travel Time, The Review of Economics and Statistics , 83: 699-707. Campbell, R. (2004) Gender, Ideology and Issue Preference: Is There such a Thing as a Political Women's Interest in Britain?, The British Journal of Politics & International Relations, 6: 22-44. Carson, R., Flores, N., Meade, N. (2001), Contingent valuation: controversies and evidence, Environmental and Resource Economics, 19: 173-210. Clark, G. L. (2015), Behaviour Cognition and Context, The New Oxford Economic Geography, Forthcoming. Author citation (2013b), Title, Regional Studies. Author citation (2015), Title, Journal of Economic Geography. Croson, R., Gneezy, U. (2009), Gender Differences in Preferences, Journal of Economic Literature 4: 448-474. Deming WE. (1943). Statistical Adjustment of Data. New York: Wiley. De Silva, D., Pownall, R. A. J. (2012), Going green: does it depend on education, gender, or income?, MPRA Paper 36465. Easterlin, R. A., Angelescu, L. (2009), Happiness and growth the world over: Time series evidence on the happiness-income paradox, IZA Discussion Paper 4060. Ferrer-i-Carbonell, A. (2005), Income and well-being: an empirical analysis of the comparison income effect, Journal of Public Economics, 89: 997–1019. Gubrium, J. F. (2000), Deconstructing Self and Well-being in Later Life, in K. W. Schaie and J. Hendricks The Evolution of the Aging Self: The Societal Impact on the Aging Process, New York, NY: Springer Gui, B. (2005), From transactions to encounters. The joint generation of relational goods and conventional values, in Gui, B., Sugden, R. (2005), Economics and Social Interaction: Accounting for Interpersonal Relations, Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. Helliwell, J. F., Barrington-Leigh, C. P. (2010), Measuring and Understanding Subjective Well-Being, Canadian Journal of Economics, 43 : 729-753. Istat, (2012). Le opinioni dei cittadini sulle misure del benessere, Risultati della consultazione online.” http://www.misuredelbenessere.it/fileadmin/relazione-questionarioBES.pdf Izrael, D., Battaglia, M.P., Frankel, M.P. (2009), Extreme Survey Weight Adjustment as a Component of Sample Balancing (a.k.a. Raking) SAS Global Forum 2009, Statistics and Data Analysis. Jiang, S., Lu, M., Sato, H. (2009), Happiness in the dual society of urban China: Hukou identity, horizontal inequality and heterogeneous reference, Global COE Hi-Stat Discussion Paper Series 20. Kahneman D, Krueger, A. B. (2006), Developments in the Measurement of Subjective Well-Being, The Journal of Economic Perspectives, 20: 3-24. Kalton G. (1983). Compensating for Missing Survey Data. Survey Research Center, Institute for Social Research, University of Michigan. Kockelman, K., Podgorski, K., Bina, M., Gadda, S. (2006), Public Perceptions of Pricing Existing Roads and Other Transportation Policies: The Texas Perspective, working paper, URL: http://www.ce.utexas.edu/prof/kockelman/. Koop, G., Poirier, D. (1994), Rank-Ordered Logit Models: an Empirical Analysis of Ontario Voter Preferences, Journal of Applied Econometrics , 9: 369-388. Kuhn, A. (2011), Inequality Perceptions, Distributional Norms, and Redistributive Preferences in East and West Germany, German economic review, 14: 483-499. Liberini, F., Redoano, M., Proto, E. (2014), Happy Voters, CESifo Working Paper Series No. 5002. Mark, D., Lusk, J., Scott Daniel, M. (2004), Recruiting Agricultural Economics Graduate Students: Student Demand for Program Attributes, American Journal of Agricultural Economics, 86: 175-184. Moffitt, R. A. (2001), Policy interventions, low-level equilibria and social interactions, in S.N. Durlauf, H.P. Young (eds) Social Dynamics, Cambridge, MA: The MIT Press. Mundlak, Y. (1978), On the pooling of time series and cross section data, Econometrica, 46: 69-85. OECD, (2013), OECD Regional Well-Being: A User's Guide, www.oecdregionalwellbeing.org. Using Data to Build Better Communities. OECD, (2014), Measuring Well-being and Progress in Countries at Different Stages of Development Towards a More Universal Conceptual Framework. OECD Publishing N. 325. Paris. Oswald, A. J., Powdthavee, N. (2010), Daughters and Left-Wing Voting, The Review of Economics and Statistics, 92: 213-227. Oswald, A. J., Wu, S. (2010), Objective confirmation of subjective measures of human well-being: evidence from the U.S.A., Science, 37: 576–579. Psycharis, Y., Rodriguez-Pose A., Tselios, V. (2015), Politics and investment: examining the territorial allocation of public investment in Greece, London, Centre for Economic Policy Research. Rampichini, C., D’Andrea, S. (1997), A hierarchical ordinal probit model for the analysis of life satisfaction in Italy, Social Indicators Research, 44: 41–69. Schyns, P. (2002), Wealth of nations, individual income and life satisfaction in 42 countries: a multilevel approach, Social Indicators Research, 60: 5–40. Sen, A. K. (1985), Commodities and Capabilities, Amsterdam: North-Holland. Senik, C. (2004), Relativizing relative income, DELTA Working Paper 2004-17. Simon, H. A. (1956), Rational choice and the structure of the environment, Psychology Review, 63: 129-38. Sointu, E. (2005), The Rise of An Ideal: Tracing Changing Discourses of Wellbeing, The Sociological Review 53: 255–274. Stiglitz, J. E., Sen, A. K., Fitoussi, J. P. (2012), Report by the Commission on the Measurement of Economic Performance and Social Progress. Downloadable at http://www.stiglitz-sen-fitoussi.fr/documents/rapport_anglais.pdf. Sugden, R. (2008), Capability, Happiness, and Opportunity, in Bruni, L., Comim, F., Pugno, M. (2008), Capabilities and Happiness, Oxford: Oxford University Press. Uhlaner, C. J. (1989), Relational Goods and Participation: Incorporating Sociability into a Theory of Rational Action, Public Choice Journal, 62: 253–285. Van Ophem, H., Stam, P., Van Praag, B. (1999), Multichoice Logit: Modeling Incomplete Preference Rankings of Classical Concerts, Journal of Business & Economic Statistics, 17:117-128. Wooldridge, J. (2002), Econometric Analysis of Cross Section and Panel Data. Cambridge, MA: MIT Press.