COVID-19’s hit to Europeans’ happiness costlier than continent’s GDP losses

Our modeling of the drivers of well-being, along with the large and growing literature on “happiness economics,” helped us determine that the 0.38-point drop in Europeans’ life satisfaction (on a ten-point scale) during April translated into the equivalent of up to 3.5 times the continent’s reduction in income per capita.

When put into monetary terms, the pandemic’s negative impact on well-being in April was up to 3.5 times the losses experienced in GDP.

To read the article, see “Well-being in Europe: Addressing the high cost of COVID-19 on life satisfaction,” June 9, 2020.