Ever rising expectations: the determinants of subjective welfare in Croatia

The focus of this paper is the subjective welfare of the individual in the case of Croatia, a country that in the 1990s carried out a transformation from a socialist to a market-based economy while being at war as a result of the break-up of the former Yugoslavia. Subjective welfare is commonly found to be different from welfare as measured by objective criteria such as income. This difference is first explored by profiling poverty based on the two measures, and here the largest difference is found among those who are not objectively poor. Further the determinants of subjective welfare are analyzed in an ordered probit model broadly grouped as objective variables of personal or household circumstances, and measures of relative income, individual income compared with different reference groups. The results show that, apart from absolute income, which leaves large room for other explanations, relative income is the strongest determinant. This can be connected to the transition heritage of Croatia and is also in line with what has been found in other countries.