Assessing the Factors Affecting on Happiness in Islamic Countries

Happiness Economics is a new branch of economic studies that typically combines economics with other disciplines such as psychology and sociology trying to deal with the theoretical and quantitative study of happiness, positive and negative emotions, welfare, life quality, life satisfaction, and its related concepts. It aims to analyze the conditions affecting the individual and society's level of happiness and satisfaction. The main objective of this paper is to assess the factors affecting on the happiness in 30 selected Islamic countries during the period 2007-2014. For this purposeæ the per capita income, inflation, unemployment, life expectancy, religious restrictions indicators variables and Generalized Method of Moments were used (GMM). The main results of this study show that in the studied countries: a) with increase in per capita income happiness increases. b) Unemployment and inflation have a depressing effect on happiness and negative impact of unemployment rate on happiness is higher than the rate of inflation. c) Increasing in the government restrictions and social hostilities as the indicators of religious restrictions is associated with less happiness. A general conclusion from the analysis of the factors affecting on happiness in Islamic countries, can say richer countries, with the less unemployment and inflation rates and less religious restrictions and higher life expectancy are happier.