The Micro and the Macro of Happiness: Case of East Asia

Abstract

Studies of subjective well-being can be and have been done at both micro and macro levels. Most studies, however, are done for Western countries. For lack of appropriate data, only community-level or provincial-level studies have been done for Thailand. This paper considers data of Thailand’s neighbor countries, based on which regression analyses provide a preview of what subjective well-being might look like in Thailand. Despite cultural, political, and economic differences between East Asian and Western countries, findings based on these East Asian countries are consistent with what have been found for Western countries. At the macro level, South Korea, having shared the experience of the Financial Crisis with Thailand, is specially considered. Both per capita GDP and subjective well-being trend upwards following the crisis