Authors: Devrim Dumludag
Publish Date: 2012/12/07
Volume: 114, Issue: 3, Pages: 1199-1210
Abstract
This paper evaluates the relative impact of different types of benchmarks such as internal and external comparisons on subjective wellbeing in Turkey There are few studies on life satisfaction for Turkey and they mostly focus on the impact of sociodemographic effects on subjective wellbeing The main purpose of this paper is to investigate how reference group’s selfreported life satisfaction is related to the level of consumption as well as the level of internal and external comparisons and other socioeconomic factors The paper relies on the Life in Transition Survey EBRD 2011 a survey conducted in late 2010 jointly by the European Bank for Reconstruction and Development and the World Bank The survey includes 1003 observations for Turkey The emphasis of the paper is based on the concept of income comparisons—both to others in the relevant reference group and to oneself in the past evaluation and future expectation The main findings are in addition to household consumption internal and external comparisons have significant impact on life satisfaction The impact of comparisons is asymmetric in most cases underperforming one’s benchmark has a greater effect than outperforming it
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