Abstract
At the end of 1983, Argentina returned to democracy. Between 1983 and 2012, Argentina brought better economic and development results as wells as an improvement in the levels of happiness and life satisfaction. Although the macroeconomic cycle was characterized by high volatility, the country GDP per capita was 74 % higher in 2012 compared to 1983, implying an average annual growth rate of 1.9 %, much higher than the average Latin American country. Poverty and income distribution as well as health and education ones notably improved after time intervals of decadence.
On the other side, Argentineans are happier now than in 1984 with the highest improvement in Buenos Aires City. Those trends do not correlate with households’ changes in the satisfaction with their financial situation over time, but resembles the idea that satisfaction with family life and the time spent with loved ones have a higher explanatory power. Likewise, socially people who frequently go out were more satisfied with their lives. Other ‘non-classical’ results – like having sex itself – does not make any difference whatsoever, while consumption of medication for mental stress or sleeping pills has no direct impact on happiness (but stressed people report low levels of life satisfaction).
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Notes
- 1.
GDP per capita, PPP (constant 2005 international dollars). Source: IMF.
- 2.
See Calvo (1986) for a description of economic policy during the military dictatorship.
- 3.
We leave aside in this “year- period characterization” the recent 2011 and 2012 years as the Argentine economy has evidence a new paradigm shift characterized by low growth and high inflation among other things.
- 4.
See Gasparini (2003).
- 5.
Schiaffino and Tetaz (2015) suggest a positive and (almost always) highly significant effect of financial satisfaction on life satisfaction in the cross-section analysis. This result may appear to conflict with the confirmation regarding the Easterlin effect. Nevertheless, it is noteworthy to say that within a society at any particular time there may exist indeed an effect whereby the richer feels happier –even when across different countries or societies that effect is absent, as shown by Easterlin.
- 6.
The Big Five personality traits (Emotional Stability, Extraversion, Openness to Experience, Agreeableness, and Conscientiousness)
- 7.
Refers to June, 2013: http://www.utdt.edu/download.php?fname=_137409543034294800.pdf
- 8.
Certainly people see a psychiatrist when they have some rather serious mental issue, but sometimes they just see a psychologist as a superior consumer good. The positive coefficient on those having had a panic attack in the last 12 month looks quite odd. A plausible interpretation is that “panic attack” is not randomly distributed across the whole population, but rather concentrated in the high class subjects, who are happy nevertheless.
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Tetaz, M., Schiaffino, P., Braun, M. (2015). Argentina’s Economic Development and Life Satisfaction Revisited – 1984–2012. In: Glatzer, W., Camfield, L., Møller, V., Rojas, M. (eds) Global Handbook of Quality of Life. International Handbooks of Quality-of-Life. Springer, Dordrecht. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-94-017-9178-6_26
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