Urban consumption dissimilarities and subjective wellbeing: Evidence from mobile big data in China

Abstract

The inequality and spatial unevenness in the distribution of economic resources can both significantly impact individual wellbeing. Data on residents’ income at a fine spatial scale are often not available in developing countries. In this study, we utilize a novel dataset derived from mobile big data with high spatial resolutions to estimate residents’ income at the district level in China. By combining this measure of consumption dissimilarity with household survey data, our findings reveal that even after controlling for overall levels of inequality, the concentration of high-spending households within a district has a negative effect on residents’ life satisfaction while the concentration of low-spending households has an opposite effect. These results contribute to the emerging research on understanding the spatial dimensions of economic inequalities.