Stylized Facts about Happiness and Violence in Latin America.

Abstract

This study investigates the determinants of life satisfaction in the Latin America using a cross sectional sample of 18 Latin American countries. The paper is not based on individuals’ measures of happiness; it uses 2012 data on national averages of life satisfaction, taken from UNDP’s 2014 Human Development Report. The paper resorts to several variables that have been identified as determinants of happiness in several studies to test if they can explain this sentiment. These variables are grouped into three categories: the first one comprises variables associated with income, such as per capita GDP and remittances; the second one includes labor market variables, such as the rates of unemployment, and quality employment. The third category comprises variables associated with social policies, such as public social spending and the human opportunity index. The first section presents a review of selected literature; this is followed by the estimation of equations where the national indexes of happiness are expressed in terms of independent variables associated with personal income, the labor market, and public policies. A third section analyzes the relationships between happiness and violence, which is a topic of special interest, given that crime has become rampant in several Latin American countries. The paper ends with a series of conclusions.