The impact of war on happiness: The case of Ukraine

We find:•That the average level of happiness declined substantially in zones that experience war directly.•That this decline is comparable to the loss of happiness a relatively well-off person would experience if he/she were to become a poor person.•That regions that are not directly affected by the war are basically as happy as they were before the war.

In this paper, we study how war affects happiness using data from the on-going conflict in Ukraine. Using a difference-in-difference design, we find that the average level of happiness declined substantially in areas that experience war directly, with the drop in happiness being roughly comparable to the loss of happiness a relatively well-off person would experience if he/she were to become a poor person. At the same time, despite the fact that the war in the East dominates the local media in Ukraine, respondents in other regions of Ukraine are about as happy as they were before the war.