Determinants of Happiness and Academic Performance of Economics Students

Abstract

In this paper, using sample of economics students at Chulalongkorn University, we study the following questions: (i) what are the determinants of happiness and academic performance of these students? (ii) is there any relationship between happiness and academic performance (measured by grade)? We find that the determinants of happiness and grades of different student groups vary. The variables that significantly affect happiness in most sample groups are income, age, academic year and romantic relationship. More income and higher academic years increase happiness. However, an increase in age and more romantic relationship decrease happiness. In addition, we find that the variables that significantly affect grades of students are income and IQ. As expected, IQ positively affects grades. However, high income is bad for grades. Surprisingly, we find that optimism negatively affects grades in some sample groups. This result is opposite to the results reported in Seligman (1990).