Steven Levitt points to a report by Kate Holton comparing self-reported happiness levels in different countries. Holton wrote:

Young people in developing nations are at least twice as likely to feel happy about their lives than their richer counterparts, a survey says. Indians are the happiest overall and Japanese the most miserable. According to an MTV Networks International (MTVNI) global survey that covered more than 5,400 young people in 14 countries, only 43 percent of the world’s 16- to 34-year-olds say they are happy with their lives. MTVNI said this figure was dragged down by young people in the developed world, including those in the United States and Britain where fewer than 30 percent of young people said they were happy with the way things were. . . . “The happier young people of the developing world are also the most religious,” the survey said. The MTVNI survey took six months to complete and resulted in the Wellbeing Index which compared the feelings of young people, based on their perceptions of how they feel about safety, where they fit into society and how they see their future. Young people from Argentina and South Africa came joint top in the list of how happy they were at 75 percent. The overall Wellbeing Index was more mixed between rich and poor. India came top followed by Sweden and Brazil came last.. . . The 14 countries included in the survey were Argentina, Brazil, China, Denmark, France, Germany, India, Indonesia, Japan, Mexico, South Africa, Sweden, the UK and the U.S.

Levitt basically says he doesn’t believe these results because, as he puts it,

Economists have a notion called “revealed preference.” By looking at people’s actions, you can infer how they feel. Applied to this MTV survey, if their measure of happiness or Wellbeing Index were meaningful, then I would expect that we would see a steady flow of unhappy young people from the United States and the United Kingdom immigrating to happy places like South Africa and Argentina and Wellbeing places like India.

History tells us that the flow of immigrants has always been and continues to be in the other direction, which to an economist, is the strongest evidence that whatever people are looking for, developed countries like the United States are where they are finding it.

I don’t know the details of the survey; for example, maybe the pollsters have more difficulty reaching unhappy people in some countries than others. But let’s assume that it’s doing a good job of getting people’s attitudes. Levitt writes that “people make many mistakes in forecasting what will or will not make them happy in the future,” but I don’t see why this invalidates survey responses about current happiness levels. If anything, it would suggest that emigrants to the U.S. are, possibly mistakenly, basing their decisions on estimates of future happiness (or maybe possibilities for their children). I would think that, from an economist’s perspective, it would be completely reasonable for a currently-happy person in India (say) to come to the U.S. in anticipation of future happiness for self and family. Even if this anticipation turns out to be wrong, the decision to emigrate will be based on the feelings at that time, not on their future happiness levels.

Beyond this, I wonder if Levitt is falling into a “Simpson’s paradox” trap of confusing within-group and between-group comparisons. The Indians who emigrate to America are not a random sample of Indians, and so it is possible for (a) Indians to be happier than Americans, and (b) Indian immigrants to become happier when moving to America. (But, given that people can make mistakes in forecasting their future happiness, I don’t know that (b) is true.)

To put it another way, I don’t plan to emigrate to India. But, even if the average Indian is happier than the average American, it doesn’t mean that I’d be happier if I were to emigrate. It’s the difference between correlation (the observed pattern of Indians and Americans) and causation (what would happen to an individual person if he or she were to move).

Anyway, I don’t mean to belabor the point, it’s just something I’d think an economist would be more aware of. Or, more likely, there’s another twist to the argument that I’m missing (for example, some reasoning about equilibria).

In summary . . .

It is a puzzle that people some countries (such as India) have higher average levels of self-reported happiness than people in the U.S., yet net immigration is from India to the U.S and not the reverse. There are several possible explanations for this puzzle, including:

1. The average happiness level in India is higher than that in the U.S., but it’s the unhappy Indians who are moving to the U.S.

2. Emigrants and immigrants are a small proportion of the population in both countries; thus, the happiness level of the people who move is essentially irrelevant to the calculation of average happiness in a country.

3. People move from India, expecting to be more happy in the U.S., but they are wrongly anticipating their future happiness. Actually, they won’t be so happy (on average) once they move.

4. People consciously decide to move to a less happy place, knowing they’ll probably be less happy, because they have goals other than immediate happiness (e.g., making a lot of money so they’ll be happy later, providing for their family, having a more exciting existence, seeing new places, …)

5. The surveys are not actually representative samples.

6. Immigration is largely about economic opportunities and family connections, and the average happiness level doesn’t really come into play. People will move to a less happy place if there are economic or family reasons to do so. (I should know, having chosen to go to college at MIT, and Levitt should know too, seeing as he teaches at the notoriously unhappy U of Chicago.)

It’s an interesting question, I think, and I’m not sure why Levitt was so quick to dismiss this sort of survey evidence. “Revealed preference” is a fine concept but preference isn’t always about happiness.

P.S. See here. This puts some weight on explanation #5 above!