Publication type
Journal Article
Author
Publication date
June 1, 2009
Abstract:
This paper tests whether one partner’s happiness significantly influences the happiness of the other partner. Using ten waves of the British Household Panel Survey, it utilizes a panel-based GMM methodology to estimate a dynamic model of life satisfaction. The use of the GMM-system estimator corrects for correlated effects of partner’s life satisfaction and solves the problem of measurement error bias. The results show that, for both genders, there is a positive and statistically significant spillover effect of life satisfaction that runs from one partner to the other partner in a couple. The positive bias on the estimated spillover effect coming from assortative mating and shared social environment at cross-section is almost offset by the negative bias coming from systematic measurement errors in the way people report their life satisfaction. Moreover, consistent with the spillover effect model, couple dissolution at t+1 is negatively correlated with partners’ life satisfaction at t.
Published in
Journal of Economic Psychology
Volume
Volume: 30 (4):675-689
DOI
http://dx.doi.org/10.1016/j.joep.2009.06.005
Subjects
Notes
Previously 'In press, corrected proof' 21 Jun. 2009
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