Transition into unhappiness? A detailed look into well-being of post-transition countries

Commissioned by: The Institute of Economics, Zagreb
Project duration: January 29, 2019 – January 31, 2020
Project manager: Vedran Recher

Summary:

Transition from planned to market economy is a well-documented phenomenon from an economic perspective, but it remains a puzzle why successful transition efforts are not translated fully into individual subjective well-being. This project aimed to broaden the scope of research by exploring the determinants of subjective well-being in post-transition countries on newly available micro-level data from the Life in Transition survey. Through inspection of determinants of subjective well-being, we were able to interpret the differences between transition countries and infer some conclusions about the relative success of their transition. We explored the relationship between various individual, historical, and social characteristics available in the LiTS survey and people's subjective well-being. This research generated new synergies with existing diverse literature on transition in both theoretical and empirical aspects.