Who moved my candy (sugar)? Happiness or money
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Abstract
This study examines the interlinkages among happiness, income and sugar consumption using a short-balanced panel data of 129 countries for the period 2016-2020. Previous studies are mostly country-wise and do not consider their relationships simultaneously. This study generally finds that the direction of causality is from income to happiness, and to sugar consumption. Similar finding is observed for the developing economies. Meanwhile, income does cause happiness for the developed economies. For the economies in transition, it is from happiness to income and to sugar consumption. Both the impulse response and variance decomposition analyses complements these findings. This study is relevant for policy implications especially, to increase the society’s income.
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