| Author(s): |
prof. PhDr. Ladislav Krištoufek Ph.D.,
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| Type: |
Articles in journals with impact factor |
| Year: |
2018 |
| Number: |
0 |
| ISSN / ISBN: |
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| Published in: |
Physica A: Statistical Mechanics and Its Applications 493, pp. 47-53 PDF |
| Publishing place: |
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| Keywords: |
happiness, solar activity, sunspot numbers, online data, Twitter |
| JEL codes: |
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| Suggested Citation: |
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| Abstract: |
We investigate the direct influence of solar activity (represented by sunspot numbers) on human happiness (represented by the Twitter-based Happiness Index). We construct four models controlling for various statistical and dynamic effects of the analyzed series. The final model gives promising results. First, there is a statistically significant negative influence of solar activity on happiness which holds even after controlling for the other factors. Second, the final model, which is still rather simple, explains around 75\% of variance of the Happiness Index. Third, our control variables contribute significantly as well -- happiness is higher in no sunspots days, happiness is strongly persistent, there are strong intra-week cycles and happiness peaks during holidays. Our results strongly contribute to the topical literature and they provide evidence of unique utility of the online data. |
