Determinants of subjective well-being in high and low income countries: Do happiness equations differ across countries?

► Present work tests the cross-country comparability of a happiness equation including proxies of social capital and relational goods. ► It focuses on two extremely opposite groups of countries: the richest and the poorest ones. ► The happiness equation is stable in the two groups of countries. ► Proxies of relational goods are positively correlated with subjective well-being. ► Social capital is a significant correlate of subjective well-being with stronger coefficients in high income countries.