Happiness is an emotion, a goal and an asset we try to pursue both on individual and macro level. Happiness is one of the most elusive concepts to define. Therefore, there is no tangibility and reliability in finding a proper scientific definition. As it represents something different to everyone, the phenomen of happiness is explored by all social sciences – each within their context. Researching the happiness in the Economy started with the contradictory thesis of Richard Easterlin (2003), i.e. that money on the long-term does not have an influence on the happiness, which means that GDP is not related with a higher level of subjective well-being or happiness after a certain period. It is known as Easterlin paradox. In the first part, the Master thesis focuses on proving the (non)existence of Easterlin paradox in Slovenia. The theoretic part is focused on the detailed explanation of happiness through the knowledge of various social sciences, outlines the problems of researching the happiness and discusses the determinants and indicators of happiness. To facilitate the understanding of empirical research, the theoretical part also covers an analysis of advertising. The empirical part focuses on finding a (statistically significant) correlation between happiness and advertising and tries to determine if and in which amount advertising is a factor of happiness for the five selected countries of the European Union. The analysis of the Easterlin paradox for Slovenia proved the validity of it, meaning that after a certain period there is no cause-effect relationship between happiness and GDP. In the empirical part, we have also come to the clear conclusions that there is a statistically significant correlation between advertising and happiness.
|
