Santa Clara University and IZA, United States.
Barnard College, Columbia University, 3009 Broadway, New York, NY, 10027, United States.
J Health Econ. 2018 Jan;57:263-276. doi: 10.1016/j.jhealeco.2017.08.003. Epub 2017 Aug 22.
That well-being is decreasing in others' income is termed the "relative income hypothesis" (RIH) by scholars of subjective well-being (SWB) and has substantial empirical support. Some studies, however, present evidence of both positive and negative explanatory channels in the relationship between others' income and SWB. We develop a theoretical framework integrating four distinct channels through which neighbors' income can affect utility: public goods, cost of living, expectations of future income, and direct effects (RIH or altruism). We estimate the relationship with SWB data from the U.S. Gallup-Healthways Well-Being Index and median-income data from the American Community Survey for ZIP codes and MSAs. The relationship is proximity-dependent: positive (negative) when using ZIP-code (MSA) median income as reference income, suggesting that positive (negative) channels dominate locally (regionally) and reconciling the literature's seemingly divergent results. These findings are consistent across SWB measures and many health-related indices. Additional analyses support the public-goods and cost-of-living channels.
幸福感会随着他人收入的增加而下降，这被主观幸福感（SWB）学者称为“相对收入假说”（RIH），并得到了大量的实证支持。然而，一些研究表明，在他人收入与 SWB 之间的关系中存在积极和消极的解释渠道。我们构建了一个理论框架，其中整合了四种不同的渠道，通过这些渠道，邻居的收入可以影响效用：公共物品、生活成本、对未来收入的期望以及直接效应（RIH 或利他主义）。我们使用美国盖洛普-健康之路幸福感指数和美国社区调查的 MSAs 和 ZIP 码的中等收入数据来估计与 SWB 的关系。这种关系是依赖于接近度的：当使用 ZIP 码（MSA）的中等收入作为参考收入时，关系是正相关的（负相关的），这表明积极的（消极的）渠道在本地（地区）占主导地位，调和了文献中看似不同的结果。这些发现与 SWB 衡量标准和许多与健康相关的指标一致。进一步的分析支持了公共物品和生活成本的渠道。
