Objective Environmental Indicators and Subjective Well-Being: Are They Directly Related?

This paper discusses how objective environmental indicators affect the measure of a country's well-being. The dependent variable in the analysis is subjective well-being (WB), for which the objective environmental variable we use is per capita carbon dioxide (CO2) emissions. The paper refers to the relationship between subjective well-being and a set of objective variables representing the four basic types of capital to satisfy human needs and to ensure the well-being of future generations based on the ecological economic systems. Implementing different mediation models, estimated using structural equation modeling, we discover that the objective environmental variable does not directly affects the country's subjective well-being, while, according to different models, the mediated effects are statistically significant in explaining subjective well-being. The surprising results lead us to think that the environmental risks related to CO2 emissions might not be correctly perceived by the public.