Working Paper: NBER ID: w24667
Authors: Erik Lindqvist; Robert Östling; David Cesarini
Abstract: We surveyed a large sample of Swedish lottery players about their psychological well-being and analyzed the data following pre-registered procedures. Relative to matched controls, large-prize winners experience sustained increases in overall life satisfaction that persist for over a decade and show no evidence of dissipating with time. The estimated treatment effects on happiness and mental health are significantly smaller, suggesting that wealth has greater long-run effects on evaluative measures of well-being than on affective ones. Follow-up analyses of domain-specific aspects of life satisfaction clearly implicate financial life satisfaction as an important mediator for the long-run increase in overall life satisfaction.
Keywords: Lottery; Wealth; Psychological Well-Being; Life Satisfaction; Financial Life Satisfaction
JEL Codes: D69; I31
Edges that are evidenced by causal inference methods are in orange, and the rest are in light blue.
| Cause | Effect |
|---|---|
| Lottery wealth (H27) | Overall life satisfaction (I31) |
| Lottery wealth (H27) | Financial life satisfaction (G59) |
| Financial life satisfaction (G59) | Overall life satisfaction (I31) |
| Lottery wealth (H27) | Happiness (I31) |
| Lottery wealth (H27) | Mental health (I19) |