The Impact of War on Happiness: the Case of Ukraine

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 zones that experience war directly, with the effect of directly experiencing war on the happiness of an individual 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 basically as happy as they were before the war. We discuss the implications of this finding for the duration of the war and for the expectations regarding the management of veterans.