TY  - JOUR
AU  - Kimball,Miles
AU  - Levy,Helen
AU  - Ohtake,Fumio
AU  - Tsutsui,Yoshiro
TI  - Unhappiness after Hurricane Katrina
JF  - National Bureau of Economic Research Working Paper Series
VL  - No. 12062
PY  - 2006
Y2  - March 2006
UR  - http://www.nber.org/papers/w12062
L1  - http://www.nber.org/papers/w12062.pdf
N1  - Author contact info:
Miles S. Kimball
Department of Economics
University of Michigan
Ann Arbor, MI  48109-1220
Tel: 734/764-2375
Fax: 734/764-2769
E-Mail: mkimball@umich.edu

Helen G. Levy
University of Michigan
Institute for Social Research - MI SQ 4119
426 Thompson St.
Ann Arbor, MI 48104 - 1248
Tel: 734/936 4506
Fax: 734/647 1186
E-Mail: hlevy@umich.edu

Fumio Ohtake
Institute of Social and
Economic Research
Osaka University
6-1 Mihogaoka, Ibaraki City
Osaka 567, JAPAN
Tel: fax 81-6-8782766;   ohtake@iser.osaka.u.ac.jp
E-Mail: ohtake@iser.osaka-u.ac.jp

Yoshiro Tsutsui
AB  - In August, September and October of 2005, the Monthly Surveys of Consumers fielded by the University of Michigan included questions about the happiness of a nationally representative sample of U.S. adults. The date of each interview is known. Looking at the data week by week, reported happiness dipped significantly in the first week of September, after the seriousness of the damage done by Katrina became clear. The impulse response of happiness is especially strong in the South Central region, closest to the devastation of Katrina. The dip in happiness lasted two or three weeks in the South Central region; in the rest of the country, reported happiness returned to normal after one or two weeks. In addition to the reaction to Katrina, happiness dipped significantly after the October 2005 earthquake in Pakistan. These results illustrate the potential of high-frequency happiness data to yield information about preferences over regional, national and international conditions by indicating the magnitude of the good or bad news conveyed by events.
ER  -