Distributional effects of freedom and income on happiness: evidence from east asian chinese societies

We estimate the distributional effects of freedom and income on happiness for East Asian Chinese societies through an ordinal parametric quantile regression approach. The results show that freedom and income exhibit positive and significant effects across societies and happiness levels. The freedom effects generally become larger for those at higher happiness quantiles. However, the income effects decline as the quantile level increases. Thus, one may have a trade-off between freedom and income without compromising individual happiness. The trade-off of freedom (income) for income (freedom) is more pronounced for people at a lower (higher) happiness level.