The "Easterlin paradox" suggests that there is no link between a society's economic development and its average level of happiness. We re-assess this paradox analyzing multiple rich datasets spanning many decades. Using recent data on a broader array of countries, we establish a clear positive...

We explore the relationships between subjective well-being and income, as seen across individuals within a given country, between countries in a given year, and as a country grows through time. We show that richer individuals in a given country are more satisfied with their lives than are poorer...

In recent decades economists have turned their attention to data that asks people how happy or satisfied they are with their lives. Much of the early research concluded that the role of income in determining well-being was limited, and that only income relative to others was related to...

We investigate the relationship between economic growth and lagged international capital flows, disaggregated into FDI, portfolio investment, equity investment, and short-term debt. We follow about 100 countries during 1990-2010 when emerging markets became more integrated into the international...

This paper applies a probit estimation to assess the relationship between economic takeoffs during 1950-2000 and inflows of portfolio debt, portfolio equity, and FDI, controlling for country's stock of short-term external debt and commodity terms of trade. Average level of FDI inflows is...

We examine the differential impact of portfolio debt, portfolio equity, and FDI inflows on 37 manufacturing industries, 99 countries, 1991-2007, extending Rajan-Zingales (1998). We utilize external finance dependence measures in a series of cross-sectional regressions of manufacturing...

This paper examines the degree to which the learning by doing externality [LBD] calls for an undervalued exchange rate, a policy suggested by recent empirical studies which concluded that mildly undervalued real exchange rate may enhance growth. We obtain mixed results. For an economy where LBD...