Abstract

Happiness economics theorizes that economic growth is only tenuously connected to happiness. This article tests this theory on historical evidence by quantifying the trend in emotional well-being (EWB) of British men during the period of rapid industrialization between 1800 and 1900, using a digitized corpus of 19,682 pamphlets published in Britain during this period and held by JSTOR. EWB is measured between these years using a sentiment analysis method of quantifying the frequency over time of a set of positive-valence (“happy”) word groups relative to negative-valence (“sad”) word groups in the corpus, finding that it remains trendless throughout. This method thereby also provides insight into the quality of life of men during the Industrial Revolution.

摘要

幸福经济学理论认为，经济增长与幸福只有微弱的联系。本文通过量化 1800 年至 1900 年快速工业化时期英国男性情绪幸福感 (EWB) 的趋势，使用这一时期在英国出版并由JSTOR。EWB 是在这些年之间使用情感分析方法测量的，该方法量化语料库中一组正价（“快乐”）词组相对于负价（“悲伤”）词组随时间的频率，发现它始终没有趋势。因此，这种方法还提供了对工业革命期间男性生活质量的洞察。