Resumen de Does good local governance improve subjective well-being?

Ana Cárcaba García , Rubén Arrondo García, Eduardo González Fidalgo

• The goal of this research is to examine the effects of good management of local governments on individual subjective well-being (SWB). We define three dimensions of good governance at the municipal level:

  accountability, government efficiency and control of corruption. We use a large survey of individual welfare carried out in Spain in 2013 and 2018 and distinguish four potential drivers of SWB: socio-demographic fac- tors, material conditions, quality of life and municipal governance. Individual QoL variables, such as social connections or health status are major drivers of SWB. To a lesser extent, the material conditions also have a significant impact. With respect to good governance, our results point to an immediate positive effect of gov- ernment efficiency on individual SWB levels. In contrast, accountability, understood as transparency, does not seem to have a significant impact. Surprisingly, we find no immediate effect of corruption on reported SWB, but a very strong deferred impact.