{"title":"Corruption and Happiness: Fortune or Evil?","authors":"Aribah Aslam, Uzair Mushtaq, Ghulam Ghouse, Rabeeya Raoof","doi":"10.1007/s13132-024-02077-7","DOIUrl":null,"url":null,"abstract":"<p>It is commonly settled that corruption is a widespread threat to economic well-being, but there is hardly any rigorous research on how it may affect happiness. Corrupt people often fail to leave a trail of corruption, much owing to its illicit nature, irrespective of it long-term costs or in broader terms to acquire wealth for short-term happiness. As a concern, much of the studies remain anecdotal. We present here an empirical substantiation of the subject above by employing individual cross-sectional survey data for 57 countries from the latest survey wave 7 conducted by the World Value Survey (WVS) from 2017 to 2022. Structural equation modeling (SEM) is used to measure and analyze the relationship between latent variable (corruption) and observed variable (Happiness). Linear causal relationship among variables that looks for both direct and indirect effects is a more powerful technique as compare to simple regression analysis. The purpose of the present paper is to explicate SEM to exemplify their application by analyzing the prominent socio-economic determinants of happiness as suggested by strong theoretical literature. We reveal interesting causalities while exploring the nexus of corruption and happiness. In such an attempt, we also identify the impact of other controlling indicators including marriage, social involvements, and democracy, which have a significant say in the chain developed above.</p>","PeriodicalId":47435,"journal":{"name":"Journal of the Knowledge Economy","volume":"34 1","pages":""},"PeriodicalIF":4.0000,"publicationDate":"2024-07-03","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":"0","resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":null,"PeriodicalName":"Journal of the Knowledge Economy","FirstCategoryId":"96","ListUrlMain":"https://doi.org/10.1007/s13132-024-02077-7","RegionNum":3,"RegionCategory":"经济学","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":null,"EPubDate":"","PubModel":"","JCR":"Q1","JCRName":"ECONOMICS","Score":null,"Total":0}
引用次数: 0
Abstract
It is commonly settled that corruption is a widespread threat to economic well-being, but there is hardly any rigorous research on how it may affect happiness. Corrupt people often fail to leave a trail of corruption, much owing to its illicit nature, irrespective of it long-term costs or in broader terms to acquire wealth for short-term happiness. As a concern, much of the studies remain anecdotal. We present here an empirical substantiation of the subject above by employing individual cross-sectional survey data for 57 countries from the latest survey wave 7 conducted by the World Value Survey (WVS) from 2017 to 2022. Structural equation modeling (SEM) is used to measure and analyze the relationship between latent variable (corruption) and observed variable (Happiness). Linear causal relationship among variables that looks for both direct and indirect effects is a more powerful technique as compare to simple regression analysis. The purpose of the present paper is to explicate SEM to exemplify their application by analyzing the prominent socio-economic determinants of happiness as suggested by strong theoretical literature. We reveal interesting causalities while exploring the nexus of corruption and happiness. In such an attempt, we also identify the impact of other controlling indicators including marriage, social involvements, and democracy, which have a significant say in the chain developed above.
期刊介绍:
In the context of rapid globalization and technological capacity, the world’s economies today are driven increasingly by knowledge—the expertise, skills, experience, education, understanding, awareness, perception, and other qualities required to communicate, interpret, and analyze information. New wealth is created by the application of knowledge to improve productivity—and to create new products, services, systems, and process (i.e., to innovate). The Journal of the Knowledge Economy focuses on the dynamics of the knowledge-based economy, with an emphasis on the role of knowledge creation, diffusion, and application across three economic levels: (1) the systemic ''meta'' or ''macro''-level, (2) the organizational ''meso''-level, and (3) the individual ''micro''-level. The journal incorporates insights from the fields of economics, management, law, sociology, anthropology, psychology, and political science to shed new light on the evolving role of knowledge, with a particular emphasis on how innovation can be leveraged to provide solutions to complex problems and issues, including global crises in environmental sustainability, education, and economic development. Articles emphasize empirical studies, underscoring a comparative approach, and, to a lesser extent, case studies and theoretical articles. The journal balances practice/application and theory/concepts.