Abstract

The literature on subjective well-being converges in pointing out two striking results. First, in the long run life satisfaction does not grow jointly with per capita income. Second, at the territorial level, dense urbanization is associated with the lowest levels of well-being. The aim of this paper is to provide evidence on the co-occurrence of these phenomena in Italian regions, by making use of a unique dataset on self-reported life satisfaction between 1980 and 2012. Empirical results show that the two paradoxes apply also to Italian regions, even if the second one is more evident in Southern ones.