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The Effect of Income on Subjective Well-Being: Evidence from the 2008 Economic Stimulus Tax Rebates

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Abstract
This paper uses tax rebate payments from the 2008 economic stimulus to estimate the effect of a one-time change in income on three measures of subjective well-being: life satisfaction, health satisfaction, and affect. The income effect is identified by exploiting the plausibly exogenous variation in the payment schedule of the rebates. Using both ordinary least squares and two-stage least squares estimators, I find that the rebates had a large and positive impact on affect, which is explained by a reduction in feelings of stress and worry. For life satisfaction and health satisfaction, there is weaker evidence of a positive impact. Overall, the results show that a temporary increase in liquidity may enhance emotional well-being and that this effect is relatively stronger for low-income respondents.

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  • Marta Lachowska, 2015. "The Effect of Income on Subjective Well-Being: Evidence from the 2008 Economic Stimulus Tax Rebates," Upjohn Working Papers 15-238, W.E. Upjohn Institute for Employment Research.
    • Handle: RePEc:upj:weupjo:15-238
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    Cited by:

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    2. Eduardo Ignacio Polo-Muro, 2021. "The effect of labor market shocks on mental health outcomes: evidence from the Spanish Great Recession," Working Papers 21.08, Universidad Pablo de Olavide, Department of Economics.
    3. Kim, Seonghoon & Koh, Kanghyock, 2019. "The Effects of the Affordable Care Act Medicaid Expansion on Subjective Well-being," IZA Discussion Papers 12636, Institute of Labor Economics (IZA).
    4. Seonghoon Kim & Kanghyock Koh, 2022. "Health insurance and subjective well‐being: Evidence from two healthcare reforms in the United States," Health Economics, John Wiley & Sons, Ltd., vol. 31(1), pages 233-249, January.
    5. Susanne Elsas, 2021. "Causality in the Link between Income and Satisfaction: IV Estimation with Internal Instruments," SOEPpapers on Multidisciplinary Panel Data Research 1143, DIW Berlin, The German Socio-Economic Panel (SOEP).
    6. Andersen, Asbjørn G. & Kotsadam, Andreas & Somville, Vincent, 2022. "Material resources and well-being — Evidence from an Ethiopian housing lottery," Journal of Health Economics, Elsevier, vol. 83(C).
    7. Joan Costa-Font & Mario Györi, 2023. "Income windfalls and overweight: evidence from lottery wins," Empirical Economics, Springer, vol. 64(5), pages 2005-2026, May.
    8. Klein Teeselink, Bouke & Zauberman, Gal, 2023. "The Anna Karenina income effect: Well-being inequality decreases with income," Journal of Economic Behavior & Organization, Elsevier, vol. 212(C), pages 501-513.

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    More about this item

    Keywords

    Subjective well-being; affect; income effect; quasi-experimental; instrumental variable;
    All these keywords.

    JEL classification:

    • I31 - Health, Education, and Welfare - - Welfare, Well-Being, and Poverty - - - General Welfare, Well-Being
    • H31 - Public Economics - - Fiscal Policies and Behavior of Economic Agents - - - Household
    • E62 - Macroeconomics and Monetary Economics - - Macroeconomic Policy, Macroeconomic Aspects of Public Finance, and General Outlook - - - Fiscal Policy; Modern Monetary Theory

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