1. The Dynamics of Happiness: Evidence from Daily Panel Data Miles Kimball, Fumio Ohtake and Yoshiro Tsutsui RA’s: Yuki Kosaka and Noah Smith

2. Two Meanings of “Happiness” The grand meaning: the greatest good for an individual, as viewed by that individual. The narrow meaning: feeling happy.

3. The Big Question: Connection Between These Two Meanings? Why it matters: The greatest good for an individual as viewed by that individual is closely related to welfare concepts in economics. Data on how happy people say they feel is abundant.

4. The relationship between long-run happiness and economic welfare concepts is controversial. Choices that do not maximize happiness – e.g., commuting further: bigger house and yard more pay aggravating commute that dominates the effect of this choice on happiness Easterlin Paradox: strong upward trend in income, no trend in happiness

5. The Easterlin Paradox

6. So, we focus on the short-run responses of happiness to news. Theory from Kimball and Willis (2007) “Utility and Happiness”: Happiness and News –After good news about anything, measured happiness will temporarily spike up. –After bad news about anything, measured happiness will temporarily dip down. Economic Definition of Good and Bad News –Good news is anything that raises expected lifetime utility. –Bad news is anything that lowers expected lifetime utility.

7. USA: The Happiness Index on the Reuters/UM Surveys of Consumers “Now think about the past week and the feelings you have experienced. Please tell me if each of the following was true for you much of the time this past week: 1.Much of the time during the past week, you felt you were happy. (Would you say yes or no)? 2.(Much of the time during the past week,) you felt sad. (Would you say yes or no?) 3.(Much of the time during the past week,) you enjoyed life. (Would you say yes or no?) 4.(Much of the time during the past week,) you felt depressed. (Would you say yes or no?)”

10. Japan: The Osaka University Panel Study of Happiness Dynamics 71 Osaka University Undergraduates –49 male, 22 female Answered daily web survey for 273 days (so far). Often used web-capable cell-phones High response rates Total of 17258 person-day observations

12. Histogram of Average Happiness (averaged across individuals)

13. Histogram of Average Personal News Ratings

14. Histogram of Average National News Ratings

15. Scatterplot of Happiness vs. Same- Day Personal News

16. Scatterplot of Happiness vs. Same- Day National News

21. Increments (Personal)

23. Increments (National)

25. Cumulative Increments (Personal)

26. Whitening (Personal)

28. Whitening (National)

30. Overshadowing (Personal)

32. Impulse Response (Personal & National)

33. Impulse Response + Neg. Sensitivity (Personal)

34. Impulse Response + Neg. Sensitivity (National)

35. Impulse Response (Personal)

36. Impulse Response (National)

37. Component Impulse Responses (Personal News)

38. Component Impulse Responses (National News)