摘要：This paper explores a wide range of cross-country determinants of life satisfaction exploiting a
database of 90,000 observations in 70 countries. We distinguish four groups of aggregate variables
as potential determinants of satisfaction: political, economic, institutional, and human development
and culture. We use ordered probit to investigate the importance of these variables on individual life
satisfaction and test the robustness of our results with Extreme Bounds Analysis. The results show
that only a small number of factors, such as openness, business climate, postcommunism, the
number of chambers in parliament, Christian majority, and infant mortality robustly influence life
satisfaction across countries while the importance of many variables suggested in the previous
literature is not confirmed. This remains largely true when the analysis splits national populations
according to gender, income and political orientation also.
