UNIVERSITY OF NOTRE DAME

Regrounding Livability
Theory: Subjective-Well
Being and Harmonized Self-
Interest
Joshua M. Gunty
8/1/2010
Setting-Up the Argument: A Lengthy Yet Vital Introduction

As the presently unanimous ratification of the United Nations’ Universal Declaration of

Human Rights indicates, international consensus deems the well-being of each individual to

be a fundamental concern of politics. Of course, the Declaration’s reference to “the inherent

dignity” and “the equal and inalienable rights of all members of the human family” as “the

foundation of freedom, justice and peace in the world” ultimately echo Thomas Jefferson’s

words in the American Declaration of Independence, which itself took root in Enlightenment

humanism. The primary ingenuity of Enlightenment thought was to shift the source of

moral and political-economic authority from God to the autonomous will of each rational

being. 1 As a result, the longstanding Thomistic view of natural law as subject to divine law

crumbled into worldly conceptions of natural law grounded solely on reason and/or

experience, from Hobbes to Grotius to Locke to Kant. This liberal approach was eventually

used to derive natural rights, which in principle apply equally to all persons as necessary

conditions of well-being. And thus perpetuated the modern grounding for political and

economic justification: the inherent moral worth of each and every human being.

Sociologist Ruut Veenhoven describes this consequence of the Enlightenment as a

convergence of individual and societal well-being: “Satisfaction came to be seen as an

individual manifestation of social welfare; the Good Life was more or less equated with the

Good Society.” 2 Ever since that turning point, attempts to further specify the meaning of

social welfare have produced rigorous philosophical debate. According to Veenhoven,

“Welfare conceptions can be grounded in three ways: 1) in moral principle, 2) in public

1 Granted, the transition away from Christendom first stepped into monarchial sovereignty
before landing on popular sovereignty, but that detail does not affect my point here.
2 Veenhoven, Ruut. “Developments in Satisfaction Research.” Social Indicators Research, vol.

37, 1996. p. 25.

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consensus, and 3) in human nature.” 3 He presents these approaches as mutually exclusive;

the principalist views social welfare in terms of values premised by conviction, the

consensualist in terms of shared ideology, the naturalist in terms of human livability.

Given that Veenhoven is a founding pioneer of the latter conception, it is no surprise that

he implicitly argues for its primacy. He contends that globalized modernity is not

amenable to principalism and consensualism due to pluralism and cross-cultural exposure,

while evolutionary theory and growing bodies of empirical evidence bolster naturalism.

Although Veenhoven’s observation regarding these conditions of modernity well

supports his prediction that development of thought on social welfare currently sways

toward the naturalist view, he overlooks how the same historical perspective hints at a

crucial problem for his sense of mutual exclusivity. First of all, the claim that “welfare is

living in accordance with Human Nature” is itself grounded on humanistic principles of

natural law. 4 Furthermore, it is due precisely to the fact that the historical forces of liberal

democracy and capitalism ushered modernity into a state of international consensus on

those principles that Veenhoven can assume the existence of “universal prerequisites for

human functioning.” 5 Considering the current rise of naturalism as the dominant paradigm

for research on quality-of-life (QOL—i.e., well-being or welfare) in society, negligence of its

fundamental conditionality is a serious cause for concern. Most importantly, the meaning

and implications of empirical findings about QOL may very well depend on which

presumptions are made about human nature.

3 Ibid.
4 Ibid., p. 28.
5 Ibid., p. 26.

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 As Veenhoven points out, naturalism implies that measurements of subjective well-

being (in terms of individual life-satisfaction and happiness) significantly (though not

exhaustively) indicate social welfare; “we cannot see ‘fit’ between human nature and habitat.

Hence we must do with manifestations of good fit. Satisfaction is one of these symptoms.” 6

Within the past quarter century, the impressive expanse of literature on life-satisfaction

and happiness has grown mostly out of the foregoing notion—that SWB manifests “good

fit.” At the broadest level, this intuitive premise is hardly disputable. When it comes to the

significance this measure of good fit holds for public policy, however, debate breaks off into

three branches—each of which respond to the question of whether the utilitarian Greatest

Happiness Principle (GHP) provides a proper normative basis for policy decisions.

In one branch, comparison theory, SWB is always appraised relative to current

standard living conditions, so attempts to improve those conditions will not increase SWB

because they simply change the norms by which people judge their lives. 7 In another

branch, top-down theories, we find two dominant approaches. Of those, set-point theory

argues that SWB is an effectively immutable trait unique to each individual, thus rendering

the GHP inadequate because structural-institutional change will not affect SWB. 8 Parallel

to set-point theory runs cultural theory, which argues that different nations have enduring,

6 Ibid., p. 29.
7 Cf. Easterlin, Richard. “Does Economic Growth Improve the Human Lot?” in David, P.A and
Reder, M.W. (eds.). Nations and Households in Economic Growth. New York, NY: Academic
Press. pp. 89-125; Easterlin, Richard. “Will Raising the Incomes of All Increase the
Happiness of All?” Journal of Economic Behavior and Organization, vol. 27. 1995. pp. 35-48.
8 Cf. Diener, Ed. “Subjective wel-being.” Psychological Bulletin, vol. 95, no. 3. 1984. pp. 542-

75; Diener, Ed., Diener, Marrissa, and Diener, Carol. “Factors Predicting the Subjective Well-
Being of Nations.” Journal of Personality and Social Psychology, vol. 69. 1995. pp. 851-64.
[4]
ingrained cultural norms unaffected by political intervention that shape SWB . 9 Finally,

bottom-up theories—most prominently in the form of Veenhoven’s livability, or human

needs theory—argue that conditions and events external to the individual are the primary

determinants of SWB. 10 Despite working from the bottom-up, livability theory has

generally come out on top as best supported by empirical evidence. 11 Expectedly, findings

in support of livability theory have been used primarily to defend the GHP as a guide for

social policy. 12 But can livability theory produce research that actually informs the policy

arena how to maximize SWB?

In what follows, I address this question theoretically and then offer an initial

empirical test of my theoretical arguments. In the first part of this endeavor, I argue that

Veenhovenian incarnations of livability theory cannot fully promote maximization of SWB

because their conception of human needs does not transcend the confines of our current

global political-economic system. I then proceed to reground livability theory with (what I

9 Cf. Inglehart, Ronald. Culture Shift in Advanced Industrial Society. Princeton, NJ: Princeton
University Press. 1990; Inkeles, Alex. National Character. New Brunswick, NJ: Transaction.
1997.
10 Cf. Veenhoven (1996)
11 Veenhoven’s work is perhaps most cited in supporting this contention. See especially,

Veenhoven, Ruut. “Is Happiness Relative?” Social Indicators Research, vol. 24. 1991, pp. 1-
34; Veenhoven, Ruut. “Is Happiness a Trait?: Tests of the Theory that a Better Society Does
Not Make People Any Happier.” Social Indicators Research, vol. 32, no. 2, 1994. pp. 101-60.
Furthermore, in his forthcoming book, The Political Economy of Human Happiness,
Benjamin Radcliff reviews the debate between set-point, comparison, and livability theory,
noting that “Veenhoven’s basic conclusion is not widely disputed” (Chapter 4).
12 See, for example, Veenhoven, Ruut. “The Utility of Happiness.” Social Indicators Research,

vol. 20. 1988. pp. 333-54; Lapinski, J., Riemann, C., Shapiro, R., Stevens, M., and Jacobs, L.
“Welfare-state regimes and subjective well-being: A cross-national study/” International
Journal of Public Opinion Research, vol. 10, no. 1. 1998. pp. 2-24; Veenhoven, Ruut.
“Happiness as an aim in public policy: The greatest happiness principle” in Linley, Alex and
Joseph, Stephen (eds.). Positive Psychology in Practice. Hoboken, New Jersey: John Wiley
and Sons, Inc. 2004. Chapter 39; Pacek, Alexander C. and Radcliff, Benjamin. “Welfare Policy
and Subjective Well-Being Across Nations: An Individual-Level Assessment.” Social
Indicators Research, vol. 89. 2008. pp. 179-91.
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argue to be) truly universal premises about human nature, expressed in terms of

interrelation between self and other. Concluding that SWB maximization requires a global

system in which—unlike today—self-interest is harmonized with the interest of the other, I

hypothesize that the strongest structural-institutional determinants of SWB will be those

that promote the transformation of the global system toward such a configuration. This

brings me to the second part of the paper, where I examine peace (according to the Global

Peace Index) as a determinant of cross-national variation in life-satisfaction and happiness

across 149 countries. Since peace is a necessary condition of harmonious interest

configuration, my version of livability theory predicts that it will correlate with SWB very

strongly and positively. The evidence suggests it does.

CONCERNING THEORY

Problematizing Veenhovenian Livability

Despite the unbounded cultural and personal variation spanning human societies in today’s

world, it seems indisputable that one global system encompasses all of them. And I mean

more by the term ‘global system’ than a mere common biosphere; that is an intrinsic

dimension of the global system, but civilization has become its own dimension of worldwide

interconnection. 13 Some prefer to describe this phenomenon of globalization primarily in

terms of economics, while others prioritize politics. The two are better understood in terms

13Cf. Hurrell, Andrew. On Global Order: Power, Values, and the Constitution of International
Society. Oxford University Press: 2007; Pogge, Thomas. World Poverty and Human Rights:
Cosmopolitan Responsibilities and Reforms. (2nd Edition) Polity Press: 2008; Singer, Peter.
One World. Yale University Press: 2002.
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of their inherent interdependence, which provides an holistic perspective from which to

analyze globalization. 14 Regardless, however, suffice it to say that global society exists.

Meanwhile, the literature investigating structural-institutional determinants of life-

satisfaction and happiness exhibits an overarching tendency to constrict its selection,

analysis, and discussion of independent variables to the globally dominant societal

paradigm of our day; these studies view the natural world in terms of Westphalian nation-

states and capitalist markets. 15 Consequently, their view of human needs presumes those

conditions. 16 And herein lies the problem: when investigating the structural-institutional

determinants of subjective well being, if we select and interpret our independent variables

from within the prevailing structural-institutional paradigm of our times (Capitalism +

Westphalianism), our research can never discover more than the preferability of certain

structural-institutional options available within that paradigm. Ironically, this plagues

Veenhovenian livability theory with a symptom parallel to the relativity pitfall of

comparison theory; in effect it sets an arbitrary ceiling to the maximum possible happiness

according to the capacity of one particular configuration of the global system. In other

14 For an explication of the inextricability between politics and economics, see Heilbroner,
Robert. The Nature and Logic of Capitalism. 1985.
15 In addition to the references in footnote 12, see also: Radcliff, Benjamin. “Politics,

Markets, and Life Satisfaction: The Political Economy of Human Happiness.” American
Political Science Review, vol. 95, no. 4. 2001. pp. 939-52; Frey, B. and Stutzer, A. Happiness
and Economics: How the Economy and Institutions Affect Human Well-Being. Princeton, NJ:
Princeton University Press. 2002; Bjornskov, C., Dreher, A., and Fischer, J. “The bigger the
better? Evidence of the effect of Government on life satisfaction around the world.”
Working Paper Series, Swiss Federal Institute of Technology: Zurich. 2005; Radcliff,
Benjamin. “Class Organization and Subjective Well-Being: A Cross-National Analysis.” Social
Forces, vol. 84, no. 1. 2005. pp. 513-30.
16 For the most part, livability theory has developed off of Abraham Maslo’s hierarchical

typology of human needs: physiological/survival, safety/security, love/belonging, esteem,

and self-actualization (Motivation and Personality, 1954). These generalizations are all fine
and dandy, but they leave plenty of room for the problem I am currently articulating.
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words, if the maximized subjective well-being of humanity means that the maximum

proportion of individuals consider their lives to fit optimally with their corresponding

contexts (the ‘good fit’ premise), it makes no sense to pursue such maximization by

constraining the set of all possible contexts according to conditions that are themselves

contextual at the macro-historical level.

In fact, since the GHP can only be justified by attributing equal moral weight to all

individuals, the only level of society for which it can be normatively relevant is the entire

human population. If, for example, a particular condition or policy increases happiness in

one country yet concurrently decreases happiness in two other countries of similar

population size, then that condition or policy is not maximizing happiness. Likewise, since

(as Veenhoven seems to admit) human needs can only be measured in terms of the context-

dependent interests that manifest them (e.g., a worker’s interest in joining a labor union

manifests the human needs for security and belonging), the assumption that catering to

human needs will promote happiness maximization only holds if human needs are

manifested as interests defined in relation to global human interest.

In turn, another assumption frequent in the literature—the common good as the

aggregation of individual interests—entails parallel risks. Individual interests are formed

from within a given societal system, which delimits the possible manifestations of human

needs. So unless the system itself is configured such that the interests of any given

individual tend to form in mutual accordance with the interests of others in the system, the

aggregation of individual interests will not necessarily represent the greatest possible

distribution of happiness. And the current global societal system seems quite susceptible to

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these concerns. From nationalism to individualism, the world teems with non-global

interest structures.

Regrounding Livability Theory

Have you ever actually taken the time to think about what it is that makes you happy?

Have you ever taken a walk at dawn, in awe of all the birds chirping with symphonic

enthusiasm for the day to come—maybe even with someone you love? Have you ever heard

a song that triggered dear yet long-forgotten memories of your childhood? Have you ever

eaten a delicious meal when you are extraordinarily hungry? Have you ever received vital

support from a friend—maybe even a stranger? Have you ever given such support to

another? These scenarios may only capture a small portion of what really makes you

happy, but one thing seems certain across the whole realm of possible answers: it depends

on you experiencing harmony—or balance or consonance or whatever word you prefer—

with your environment.

“Ah!” some will say, “Harmonious, sure, and very often with people and things

around me. But I can think of many occasions on which I felt joy as a result of inner

thought and reflection, all within myself.”

“Ah!” I will say, “And how did you acquire the content of those thoughts? All

concepts necessarily derive from sensory experience, no matter how many abstract

intermediaries happen to lie between concept and origin. So, then this becomes a question

about the source of sensory experience. Quite frankly, that’s impossible to know—Kant

101. 17 Our two inextricable cognitive capacities—feeling and thinking—situate our

17 Cf. Kant, Immanuel. Critique of Pure Reason. 1781.

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consciousness such that sensory experience generally seems to derive from phenomena

external to our bodies. Naturally, the physical boundaries we perceive through space and

time provide the foundation for our concepts of individuality and otherness. And insofar as

you understand yourself to be an individual, the very meaning of your self-identity only

applies within the structural conditions by which the concept of self emerges as a response

to perceiving otherness. Sure, your imagination did plenty of mixing and matching, but

your so-called ‘internal’ harmony experience is actually a reconfiguration of information

you received from the countless things you perceive to comprise your external

environment.”

In other words, if the self cannot exist without the other, the well-being of the self is

definable only with respect to the relationship between the self and its environment.

Within the physical world, a good relationship between two things is a connection

that provides mutual benefit (and therefore harmony—also by definition). 18 When a person

assesses her own well-being, however, her conception of self affects what it means for her

benefit to correspond to the benefit of her environment (and vice versa). The expectation

would seem to be that the more a person identifies in terms of the interdependence between

self and other, the more her subjective well-being accords with her environment’s well-

being. But here a complication arises: for any given self, its environment includes a variety

of other rational beings. 19 Consequently, each individual perceives its environment from

18 After all, every concept is necessarily defined in terms of its relationship to other
concepts.
19 Here I allude to the intrinsic sociality of humans. As Hannah Arendt puts it, “No human

life, not even the life of the hermit in nature’s wilderness, is possible without a world which
directly or indirectly testifies to the presence of other human beings” (The Human
Condition, University of Chicago Press, 1958, p. 22). Moreover, by the term “rational being,”
I simply refer to a living being with the two inextricable cognitive capacities of feeling and
[10]
the vantage point of one particular perspective, yet meanwhile the resulting plurality of

perspectives is unified by a common framework of rational consciousness. If an individual’s

conception of his environment is not framed in terms of the context that he shares

experientially with all other individuals, then his subjective well-being only indicates the

well-being of his environment at whatever other level of abstraction he understands his

environment to be—whether particular or general. Thus in order for the individual’s

subjective well-being to correspond to the well-being of all other individuals in his

environment, another step beyond interdependent self-conception is required; every

individual must also understand his environment according to the frame of reference each

one shares with each other.

As the wisdom of George Herbert Mead and subsequent symbolic interactionist

literature in social psychology, formation of self-conception is embedded within the

socialization process. 20 Of course, that process is shaped by the structural-institutional

configuration of society—from culture to economics to politics. If subjective well-being can

only be maximized when the subjective self-interest of a plurality of individuals is

harmonized, then we should expect to find the strongest determinants of SWB in variables

that measure movement toward or conditions in favor of such harmonization.

EMPIRICAL INVESTIGATION

thinking—or, in Kant’s terminology, sensibility (of intuitions) and understanding (of

concepts). For the purposes of this paper, you may generally assume that my use of the
term rational being refers to human beings. However, I by no means preclude the
possibility of other rational beings, even on Earth. (Dolphins, for example, would be
potential candidates—not to mention species that might emerge further down the
evolutionary path.)
20 Mead, George Herbert. Mind, Self, & Society. 1934.

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As an initial effort to test my general hypothesis regarding the harmonization of self-

interests, I employ an ordered least-squares regression model to examine subjective well-

being as the dependent variable of an heretofore unused independent variable: peace.

Although Ed Diener and William Tov have looked at the relationship between SWB and

peace, they treat SWB as the independent variable, arguing that happy citizens tend to

display “peace-relevant attitudes.” 21 No study has yet investigated peace as a structural-

institutional determinant of SWB.

Analysis

More specifically, my independent variable is the Global Peace Index (GPI) rankings for

2010 bfrom the Institute for Economics and Peace. The advantage of this indicator is that

it is measured in terms directly comparable to aggregated mean levels of life-satisfaction

and happiness across 149 countries throughout the world. The disadvantage is that it only

seeks to measure the minimal type of peace—negative peace. Coined by Peace Studies

pioneer Johan Galtung, the terms negative peace and positive peace distinguish between the

mere absence of direct violence and the absence of both direct and structural violence.

However, the 2010 GPI report considers its data analysis to be a step toward being able to

identify the structural-institutional conditions that support lasting peace—“a measurement

of peace as the ‘absence of violence’ that seeks to determine what cultural attributes and

institutions are associated with states of peace. 22 Likewise, since negative peace is a

necessary condition of positive peace, the GPI still serves well as an initial measurement of

21 Deiner, Ed and Tov, William. “Subjective Well-Being and Peace.” Journal of Social Issues,
vol. 63, no. 2. 2007. pp. 421-40.
22 Global Peace Index: 2010 Methodology, Results, and Findings. Institute for Economics &

Peace.
[12]
the promotion of systemic transformation toward harmonizing the interest of the other

such that they interrelate with mutual benefit. This is because violence by definition harms

others.

The GPI is scored such that the lower the score, the more peaceful the country. The

most peaceful country, New Zealand, scored 1.188. The least peaceful country, Iraq, scored

3.406. This score is calculated according to 23 indicators selected by the GPI panel. I will

not list them all here, but they breakdown into three categories: 1) measures of ongoing

domestic and international conflict; 2) measures of social safety and security; 3) measures of

militarization. Moreover, the panel selected to weigh “Internal Peace” factors at 60% and

“External Peace” factors at 40%.

For my dependent variable, national mean-level SWB, I run two regressions: one for

life-satisfaction, the other for happiness. Both of these measures are taken from the third

wave of the World Values Survey. When asking respondents about how much they are

satisfied with life-as-a-whole, the WVS ranks 10 as the most satisfied and 1 as least

satisfied. The measure for affective feelings of overall happiness, however, are scored in the

opposite direction—1 indicating most happy and 4 indicating least happy.

For my regression model, I employ two sets of control variables. The first set

covers known individual-level factors associated with SWB as a result of prior research.

These are: income satisfaction, trust, sex, age, age squared (to cover time variance), marital

status, personal health, unemployment, income, and church attendance. The second set is

consists of 99 dummy variables, well described by Radcliff:

[These variables] control for the relatively fixed, social, political, and cultural
characteristics of a given country. The potential number of such variables is extremely
large, but to the extent that they are indeed relatively constant for each country [for a
short time frame], the most convenient way to account for them is simply to fit a

[13]
 constant for each country by including dummy variables for each, excepting a reference
category. The effect of the dummies is, of course, to fit separate intercepts for each
country, thus accounting for the large and sustained differences across countries. 23

As the data tables printed below in this document indicate, the GPI correlates

positively with both life-satisfaction and happiness, with an especially strong association for

life-satisfaction. In the table for the latter variable, the regression output yields a coefficient

of -.771—over twice as determinant as marriage and nearly twice as determinant as income

satisfaction! (The negative sign of the coefficient indicates a positive correlation between

the independent and dependent variables on account of the measurement scales I discuss

above.) This coefficient is fully significant, and an R-squared of .4093 means that a

meaningful 40% of data variance is attributable to the independent variable. Meanwhile,

happiness is a weaker correlate of the GPI, with a coefficient of .063. (The sign, once again

here, indicates positive correlation on account of the measurement scales.) The lower R-

squared means that the model only captures 27% of the variance. Still, the general

conclusion is clear: the data results strongly support my hypothesis.

Discussion and Conclusion

These empirical findings suggest that more work ought to be done not only to better

understand peace as a determinant of SWB but also to frame research on the structural-

institutional determinants of happiness in terms of the extent to which they promote

harmonization of self-interest. Indeed, we may re-interpret past empirical findings

according to the theory I have begun to build in this paper. For example, Pacek and

Radcliff’s findings that the welfare state (i.e. decommodification) increases life-satisfaction

23 Radcliff (2005), p. 517.

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can be (and ought to be) understood on the grounds that decommodification is a movement

away from the radical individualism of the profit motive. It is only through such reframing

of our empirical analysis that we stand a chance at truly working toward the greatest

happiness for the greatest number.

Linear regression Number of obs = 179523

F( 10, 80) = .
Prob > F = .
R-squared = 0.4093
Root MSE = 1.8875

(Std. Err. adjusted for 81 clusters in wvs_merge)

------------------------------------------------------------------------------
| Robust
satisfaction | Coef. Std. Err. t P>|t| [95% Conf. Interval]
-------------+----------------------------------------------------------------
GPI | -.7710481 .0269064 -28.66 0.000 -.8245935 -.7175026
income_sat~n | .4277709 .0161922 26.42 0.000 .3955475 .4599943
trust | -.0838316 .0288069 -2.91 0.005 -.1411591 -.026504
sex | -.0915275 .0181421 -5.05 0.000 -.1276315 -.0554235
age | -.0196463 .003221 -6.10 0.000 -.0260564 -.0132363
agesq | .0002219 .0000345 6.43 0.000 .0001532 .0002906
married | .2916279 .0263069 11.09 0.000 .2392755 .3439803
phealth | -.4326052 .0138523 -31.23 0.000 -.4601721 -.4050383
chiefunemp~d | -.1745229 .040723 -4.29 0.000 -.2555642 -.0934817
income | .0162884 .0084514 1.93 0.057 -.0005304 .0331072
churchattend | -.0244922 .0045845 -5.34 0.000 -.0336157 -.0153687
countrydum1 | -1.254556 .0112964 -111.06 0.000 -1.277037 -1.232075
countrydum2 | -.4936058 .024907 -19.82 0.000 -.5431723 -.4440392
countrydum3 | (dropped)
countrydum4 | -.2837181 .0158977 -17.85 0.000 -.3153555 -.2520807
countrydum5 | .8299173 .0095531 86.87 0.000 .810906 .8489286
countrydum6 | .1477881 .0079092 18.69 0.000 .1320483 .163528
countrydum7 | .0864427 .0166554 5.19 0.000 .0532975 .119588
countrydum8 | -.3904478 .0182631 -21.38 0.000 -.4267925 -.3541031
countrydum9 | -.9872702 .0263216 -37.51 0.000 -1.039652 -.9348885
countrydum10 | -.2024411 .0204166 -9.92 0.000 -.2430713 -.1618108
countrydum11 | .9280909 .018739 49.53 0.000 .8907991 .9653826
countrydum12 | -.9057112 .0248623 -36.43 0.000 -.9551888 -.8562336
countrydum13 | -.5170226 .0231201 -22.36 0.000 -.563033 -.4710123
countrydum14 | .0520133 .0172894 3.01 0.004 .0176063 .0864204
countrydum15 | .4253337 .0107598 39.53 0.000 .4039211 .4467463
countrydum16 | .3239103 .0206042 15.72 0.000 .2829067 .364914
countrydum17 | -.3375345 .0120295 -28.06 0.000 -.3614739 -.3135951
countrydum18 | (dropped)
countrydum19 | .0102545 .0162036 0.63 0.529 -.0219917 .0425006
countrydum20 | .4850786 .0219604 22.09 0.000 .4413759 .5287812
countrydum21 | -.053663 .0195019 -2.75 0.007 -.092473 -.0148531
countrydum22 | .3751951 .0173086 21.68 0.000 .3407499 .4096402
countrydum23 | .6631462 .0216804 30.59 0.000 .6200008 .7062915
countrydum24 | (dropped)

[15]
countrydum25 | -.8680062 .0163057 -53.23 0.000 -.9004556 -.8355568
countrydum26 | -.6808303 .030772 -22.12 0.000 -.7420686 -.6195921
countrydum27 | .2472057 .0123897 19.95 0.000 .2225495 .2718619
countrydum28 | -.154819 .0138142 -11.21 0.000 -.1823102 -.1273279
countrydum29 | .2305525 .015906 14.49 0.000 .1988986 .2622064
countrydum30 | -.5215325 .016595 -31.43 0.000 -.5545577 -.4885073
countrydum31 | (dropped)
countrydum32 | 1.47855 .028152 52.52 0.000 1.422526 1.534574
countrydum33 | (dropped)
countrydum34 | -.3594056 .0197156 -18.23 0.000 -.3986409 -.3201704
countrydum35 | .4966022 .0058915 84.29 0.000 .4848778 .5083267
countrydum36 | -.0653695 .0208229 -3.14 0.002 -.1068083 -.0239307
countrydum37 | -.05028 .0221453 -2.27 0.026 -.0943504 -.0062095
countrydum38 | -.1451913 .0171176 -8.48 0.000 -.1792564 -.1111263
countrydum39 | (dropped)
countrydum40 | .1070175 .02138 5.01 0.000 .0644698 .1495651
countrydum41 | (dropped)
countrydum42 | -.1376792 .0189521 -7.26 0.000 -.1753951 -.0999634
countrydum43 | -.5927633 .01025 -57.83 0.000 -.6131614 -.5723651
countrydum44 | -.7708997 .0177457 -43.44 0.000 -.8062148 -.7355845
countrydum45 | -.5105278 .0087966 -58.04 0.000 -.5280336 -.4930219
countrydum46 | (dropped)
countrydum47 | -.4336445 .0291583 -14.87 0.000 -.4916713 -.3756176
countrydum48 | -.8959353 .0235196 -38.09 0.000 -.9427408 -.8491298
countrydum49 | (dropped)
countrydum50 | (dropped)
countrydum51 | -.3140231 .0206296 -15.22 0.000 -.3550773 -.2729689
countrydum52 | (dropped)
countrydum53 | .9143423 .0343258 26.64 0.000 .8460319 .9826528
countrydum54 | -1.012319 .0270666 -37.40 0.000 -1.066183 -.958455
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[16]
countrydum88 | .6144842 .0264646 23.22 0.000 .5618181 .6671504
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countrydum93 | (dropped)
countrydum94 | (dropped)
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countrydum98 | (dropped)
countrydum99 | (dropped)
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[17]
*********************************************

Linear regression Number of obs = 177543

F( 10, 80) = .
Prob > F = .
R-squared = 0.2698
Root MSE = .63187

(Std. Err. adjusted for 81 clusters in wvs_merge)

------------------------------------------------------------------------------
| Robust
happiness | Coef. Std. Err. t P>|t| [95% Conf. Interval]
-------------+----------------------------------------------------------------
GPI | .0626982 .0056553 11.09 0.000 .0514437 .0739526
income_sat~n | -.0587743 .0035132 -16.73 0.000 -.0657657 -.0517829
trust | .0333242 .0080338 4.15 0.000 .0173364 .049312
sex | .0431758 .0063601 6.79 0.000 .0305188 .0558327
age | .0126062 .0011122 11.33 0.000 .0103928 .0148196
agesq | -.0001318 .0000116 -11.37 0.000 -.0001548 -.0001087
married | -.1720115 .0117795 -14.60 0.000 -.1954535 -.1485696
phealth | .2171846 .0087508 24.82 0.000 .19977 .2345992
chiefunemp~d | .0263397 .0189169 1.39 0.168 -.011306 .0639855
income | -.012449 .0030891 -4.03 0.000 -.0185966 -.0063015
churchattend | .0126596 .0016837 7.52 0.000 .0093089 .0160102
countrydum1 | .6309779 .0025376 248.65 0.000 .6259279 .6360278
countrydum2 | .0011552 .0102682 0.11 0.911 -.0192792 .0215896
countrydum3 | (dropped)
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countrydum31 | (dropped)
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countrydum33 | (dropped)
countrydum34 | .2001145 .0108559 18.43 0.000 .1785106 .2217185
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countrydum37 | .01669 .0060514 2.76 0.007 .0046473 .0287327
countrydum38 | .2759273 .0048158 57.30 0.000 .2663435 .2855111

[18]
countrydum39 | (dropped)
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countrydum94 | (dropped)
countrydum95 | (dropped)
countrydum96 | .1183177 .0362901 3.26 0.002 .0460982 .1905372
countrydum97 | .213689 .0058116 36.77 0.000 .2021235 .2252544
countrydum98 | (dropped)
countrydum99 | (dropped)
_cons | 1.408358 .0364037 38.69 0.000 1.335913 1.480804
------------------------------------------------------------------------------

[19]
[20]