Globalization and Happiness Across World Countries

Abstract

Globalization encompasses interaction and interdependence among nations which may result in greater happiness through multiple channels such as socialization, access to global products, international peace and security attained through collaboration between governments, sustainable development through international organizations and much more. The current study investigates the impact of globalization on happiness by taking data of 80 countries across the world and covering the time period of all the seven waves of World Values Survey (1981-2022). Impact of economic, political and social dimensions of globalization on happiness are analyzed separately. In addition, GDP per capita, Inflation, Democracy, Human Capital, Life expectancy and Employment are additional regressors in the model. The uniqueness of this study lies in the fact that it is not only one of the few studies on the topic using longest span of panel data but also in furnishing regional analysis of globalization and happiness for Asia, Africa, Europe and Latin America and Caribbean. Results of the fixed effects estimation support the evidence that globalization fosters happiness across the sample of world countries and social globalization has largest impact as compared to economic and political dimensions. Regional analysis confirms that globalization has robust impact on happiness of Asian and Latin American regions but insignificant impact on African and European regions. Besides globalization, GDP per capita and human capital are found to have a positive and significant impact on Happiness. The study recommends development of those strategies aimed at maximizing the positive impacts of globalization while mitigating its potential negative consequences on well-being.