Happiness in Australian Urban Areas : Do In-Urban and Out-Urban Migrants Have the Same Experience?

Using individual panel data from Australia, this paper finds that people in urban areas are less happy than those in other areas. In fixed effects models, the urban effect on happiness is estimated by comparing the happiness levels of migrants when they are in urban areas to levels in other areas. Estimating the urban effect separately for those migration groups, I find that while migrants moving out of urban areas experience notable increases in their happiness, migrants moving into urban areas do not experience significant changes in their happiness. The pattern is aligned with the downside effect of urban areas and the upside effect that migrants receive since they are those that reap the most benefits by doing so