Heterogeneity in subjective wellbeing: An application to occupational allocation in Africa

Paolo Falco; William F. Maloney; Bob Rijkers; Mauricio Sarrias

doi:10.1016/j.jebo.2014.12.022

Heterogeneity in subjective wellbeing: An application to occupational allocation in Africa

Paolo Falco, William F. Maloney, Bob Rijkers, Mauricio Sarrias

Development Economics Research Group (DERG)

8 Citations (Scopus)

Abstract

By exploiting recent advances in mixed (stochastic parameter) ordered probit estimators and a unique longitudinal dataset from Ghana, this paper examines the distribution of subjective wellbeing across sectors of employment. We find little evidence for the overall inferiority of the small firm informal sector relative to the formal salaried sector at the conditional mean. Moreover, the estimated underlying random parameter distributions unveil substantial latent heterogeneity in subjective wellbeing around the central tendency that fixed parameter models cannot detect. All job categories contain substantial shares of both relatively happy and disgruntled workers.

Original language	English
Journal	Journal of Economic Behavior and Organization
Volume	111
Pages (from-to)	137-153
Number of pages	17
ISSN	0167-2681
DOIs	https://doi.org/10.1016/j.jebo.2014.12.022
Publication status	Published - 1 Mar 2015

Keywords

Africa
Developing country labor markets
Informality
Mixed ordered probit
Self-employment
Subjective wellbeing

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10.1016/j.jebo.2014.12.022

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abstract = "By exploiting recent advances in mixed (stochastic parameter) ordered probit estimators and a unique longitudinal dataset from Ghana, this paper examines the distribution of subjective wellbeing across sectors of employment. We find little evidence for the overall inferiority of the small firm informal sector relative to the formal salaried sector at the conditional mean. Moreover, the estimated underlying random parameter distributions unveil substantial latent heterogeneity in subjective wellbeing around the central tendency that fixed parameter models cannot detect. All job categories contain substantial shares of both relatively happy and disgruntled workers.",

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AU - Falco, Paolo

AU - Maloney, William F.

AU - Rijkers, Bob

AU - Sarrias, Mauricio

PY - 2015/3/1

Y1 - 2015/3/1

N2 - By exploiting recent advances in mixed (stochastic parameter) ordered probit estimators and a unique longitudinal dataset from Ghana, this paper examines the distribution of subjective wellbeing across sectors of employment. We find little evidence for the overall inferiority of the small firm informal sector relative to the formal salaried sector at the conditional mean. Moreover, the estimated underlying random parameter distributions unveil substantial latent heterogeneity in subjective wellbeing around the central tendency that fixed parameter models cannot detect. All job categories contain substantial shares of both relatively happy and disgruntled workers.

AB - By exploiting recent advances in mixed (stochastic parameter) ordered probit estimators and a unique longitudinal dataset from Ghana, this paper examines the distribution of subjective wellbeing across sectors of employment. We find little evidence for the overall inferiority of the small firm informal sector relative to the formal salaried sector at the conditional mean. Moreover, the estimated underlying random parameter distributions unveil substantial latent heterogeneity in subjective wellbeing around the central tendency that fixed parameter models cannot detect. All job categories contain substantial shares of both relatively happy and disgruntled workers.

KW - Africa

KW - Developing country labor markets

KW - Informality

KW - Mixed ordered probit

KW - Self-employment

KW - Subjective wellbeing

UR - http://www.mendeley.com/research/heterogeneity-subjective-wellbeing-application-occupational-allocation-africa

U2 - 10.1016/j.jebo.2014.12.022

DO - 10.1016/j.jebo.2014.12.022

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VL - 111

SP - 137

EP - 153

JO - Journal of Economic Behavior and Organization

JF - Journal of Economic Behavior and Organization

ER -

Heterogeneity in subjective wellbeing: An application to occupational allocation in Africa

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Keywords

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