Wine and happiness: Panel data analysis

Abstract

The harmful effect of alcohol is well known, worldwide over 5% of all deaths is related to the harmful use of alcohol, this represents around 3 million death each year. However, alcohol is also known as the cultural, social practices and a form of lifestyle globally. This makes the control of the harmful use of alcohol extremely difficult. If people are happy with their consumption of alcohol, it is difficult to convince them not to trace their happiness. This paper examines the association between happiness and the consumption of three types of alcohol (Beer, Wine and Spirits) with a fixed effect panel data model using global data from 2010 to 2015. The empirical result shows that apart from happiness, income, social support and life expectancy also take a role in affecting alcohol consumption. Indeed, different regions have different preference in the consumption of alcohol. Europeans tend to enjoy wine with the association between wine and happiness being the largest while beer tends to bring happiness and enjoyment to people in Western Pacific and America. Although spirits take up the largest portion (over 44.8%) of worldwide, the association between happiness and spirits are weak.