Papers by Nattavudh Powdthavee
Do You Have to Win It to Fix It? A Longitudinal Study of Lottery Winners and Their Health Care Demand
Life satisfaction and sexual minorities: Evidence from Australia and the United Kingdom
Journal of Economic Behavior & Organization, 2015
Can Having Internal Locus of Control Insure Against Negative Shocks? Psychological Evidence from Panel Data
SSRN Electronic Journal, 2000
Can Money Change Who We Are? Estimating the Effects of Unearned Income on Measures of Incentive-Enhancing Personality Traits
The importance of noncognitive childhood skills in predicting higher wages is well documented in ... more The importance of noncognitive childhood skills in predicting higher wages is well documented in economics. This paper studies the reverse. Using surveys of lottery winners, we analyze the effects of unearned income on the Big Five personality traits. After correcting for potential endogeneity problems from prize sizes, we find that unearned income improves traits that predict pro-social and cooperative behaviors,
Policy-makers in almost all countries agree on one thing: namely on the importance of education a... more Policy-makers in almost all countries agree on one thing: namely on the importance of education and skills to ensuring future economic prosperity. A fruitful line of research has focused on determining the impact that acquiring education or training has on an individual's labour market productivity and earning prospects: this is known as rate of return analysis. The CEE has undertaken extensive research in this area and provided evidence on the returns to a variety of qualifications in the UK (CEE Discussion Papers 4, 6, 35 and 47). The CEE has also investigated specific issues such as the return to basic skills (CEE DP 3), returns to the marginal learner (CEE DP 45), returns to NVQ2 (CEE DP 46), the returns to qualifications acquired in adulthood (CEE DPs 19 and 39) and the returns to training (CEE DP 36). In addition the CEE has researched the range of methodological issues pertaining to rate of return analysis (see CEE DP 5 and 16).
Journal of Behavioral and Experimental Economics, 2015
Many economists and educators favour public support for education on the premise that education i... more Many economists and educators favour public support for education on the premise that education improves the overall quality of life of citizens. However, little is known about the different pathways through which education shapes people's satisfaction with life overall. One reason for this is because previous studies have traditionally analysed the effect of education on life satisfaction using single-equation models that ignore interrelationships between different theoretical explanatory variables. In order to advance our understanding of how education may be related to overall quality of life, the current study estimates a structural equation model using nationally representative data for Australia to obtain the direct and indirect associations between education and life satisfaction through five different adult outcomes: income, employment, marriage, children, and health. Although we find the estimated direct (or net) effect of education on life satisfaction to be negative and statistically significant in Australia, the total indirect effect is positive, sizeable and statistically significant for both men and women.
SSRN Electronic Journal, 2000
Very little is known about how the differential treatment of sexual minorities could influence su... more Very little is known about how the differential treatment of sexual minorities could influence subjective reports of overall well-being. This paper seeks to fill this gap. Data from two large surveys that provide nationally representative samples for two different countries -Australia (the HILDA Survey) and the UK (the UK Household Longitudinal Study) -are used to estimate a simultaneous equations model of life satisfaction. The model allows for selfreported sexual identity to influence a measure of life satisfaction both directly and indirectly through seven different channels: (i) income; (ii) employment; (iii) health (iv) partner relationships; (v) children; (vi) friendship networks; and (vii) education. Lesbian, gay and bisexual persons are found to be significantly less satisfied with their lives than otherwise comparable heterosexual persons. In both countries this is the result of a combination of direct and indirect effects. JEL classification: I31, J71
Longitudinal Evidence for a Midlife Nadir in Human Well-being: Results from Four Data Sets
The Economic Journal, 2015
SSRN Electronic Journal, 2000
Many economists and educators favour public support for education on the premise that education i... more Many economists and educators favour public support for education on the premise that education improves the overall well-being of citizens. However, little is known about the causal pathways through which education shapes people's subjective well-being (SWB). This paper explores the direct and indirect well-being effects of extra schooling induced through compulsory schooling laws in Australia. We find the net effect of schooling on later SWB to be positive, though this effect is larger and statistically more robust for men than for women.
What childhood characteristics predict psychological resilience to economic shocks in adulthood?
Journal of Economic Psychology, 2014
ABSTRACT This paper investigates whether people’s psychological resilience to one of the most imp... more ABSTRACT This paper investigates whether people’s psychological resilience to one of the most important economic shocks – job loss – can be predicted using early childhood characteristics. Using a longitudinal data that tracked almost 3,000 children into adulthood, we showed that the negative effect of unemployment on mental well-being and life satisfaction is significantly larger for workers who, as adolescents, had a relatively poor father-child relationship. Maternal unemployment, on the other hand, is a good predictor of how individuals react psychologically to future unemployment. Although the results should be viewed as illustrative and more research is needed, the current article provides new longitudinal evidence that psychological resilience to job loss may be determined early on in the life cycle.
An interview with Andrew Oswald
International Journal of Wellbeing, 2012
In the early 90s one of the things that attracted me was the thought that we could use wellbeing ... more In the early 90s one of the things that attracted me was the thought that we could use wellbeing data to try to answer the question of whether unemployment was voluntary or involuntary. That's one thing that drew me in. And, second, just generally, I realised that it was possible to conduct happiness surveys and that just seemed to me a very interesting thing to do. And I remember the first time an equation came out where happiness was increasing in income and I thought “Hmm, we're definitely onto something here”.
Stability of Happiness, 2014
Are people condemned to an inherent level of experienced happiness? A review of the economic rese... more Are people condemned to an inherent level of experienced happiness? A review of the economic research on subjective well-being gives reason to the assessment that happiness can change. First, empirical findings clearly indicate that people are not indifferent to adverse living conditions when reporting their subjective well-being as observed for limited freedom of choice, low levels of democratization, unemployment, low income, etc. Second, considering people's adaptation to life events and (external) conditions reveals substantial heterogeneity in the speed as well as the degree of reversion. Together, the evidence suggests that reported subjective well-being is a valuable complementary source of information about human well-being and the phenomenon of adaptation. Many challenges, of course, remain. First, we are only at the beginning of understanding variation in the process of adaptation. The modeling of happiness over the life course promises a productive perspective. Second, adaptation might well pose a challenge to individual decision-making when people are not good in predicting it. Third, adaptation might have great consequences for public policy and the idea of social welfare maximization depending on how fast and slow adapting people are treated.
The happiness equation: the surprising economics of our most valuable asset
Choice Reviews Online, 2012
Does more education lead to better health habits? Evidence from the school reforms in Australia
Social science & medicine (1982), 2015
The current study provides new empirical evidence on the causal effect of education on health-rel... more The current study provides new empirical evidence on the causal effect of education on health-related behaviors by exploiting historical changes in the compulsory schooling laws in Australia. Since World War II, Australian states increased the minimum school leaving age from 14 to 15 in different years. Using differences in the laws regarding minimum school leaving age across different cohorts and across different states as a source of exogenous variation in education, we show that more education improves people's diets and their tendency to engage in more regular exercise and drinking moderately, but not necessarily their tendency to avoid smoking and to engage in more preventive health checks. The improvements in health behaviors are also reflected in the estimated positive effect of education on some health outcomes. Our results are robust to alternative measures of education and different estimation methods.
SSRN Electronic Journal, 2000
We propose a model in which parents have a subjective belief about the impact of their investment... more We propose a model in which parents have a subjective belief about the impact of their investment on the early skill formation of their children. This subjective belief is determined in part by locus of control (LOC), i.e., the extent to which individuals believe that their actions can influence future outcomes. Using a unique British cohort survey, we show that maternal LOC measured during the 1sttrimester strongly predicts early and late child cognitive and noncognitive outcomes. Further, we utilize the variation in maternal LOC to improve the specification typically used in the estimation of parental investment effects on child development.
Trust and Happiness: Comparative Study Before and After the Great East Japan Earthquake
Social Indicators Research, 2014
Does Increasing Schooling Improve Later Health Habits? Evidence from the School Reforms in Australia
SSRN Electronic Journal, 2000
Money makes people right-wing and inegalitarian
Are happier people less judgmental of other people's selfish behaviors? Laboratory evidence from trust and gift exchange games
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Papers by Nattavudh Powdthavee