| Since the paradox of happiness was put forward,countries have paid more and more attention to the happiness of their citizens.According to the data of Chinese residents’ subjective happiness from the China General Social Survey,the economic growth has not brought the continuous improvement of residents’ happiness.Existing literature shows that the expenditure on education could significantly enhance residents’ well-being,based on which,this thesis aims to study the influence on residents’ happiness of the overall educational expenditure of the whole society to explore whether there is an optimal education expenditure scale and scale of education on different levels to maximize the residents’ well-being.This thesis first conducts a theoretical analysis of education expenditure and subjective well-being and concludes that there may be a nonlinear relationship between education expenditure and well-being.Then analyze the current situation of education expenditure and subjective well-being.Finally,according to the theoretical analysis and current situation analysis,based on the data of China General Social Survey over the years,establishing the empirical model,it is found that:(1)There is an inverted U-shaped relationship between education expenditure and residents’ subjective well-being,and it has not reached the optimal scale at present,so residents’ happiness can be increased through higher education expenditure.As for higher education,when the expenditure reaches8.51 billion yuan,and residents’ happiness is the strongest.(2)The turning point of the mid-west area is lower,indicating that the ability of local government to pay for education is greatly restricted by local economic development,and more central transfer payments are needed.(3)The marginal effect shows that the total expenditure has a stronger promoting effect on the mid-west regions,and these regions have the strongest positive happiness perception on primary education expenditure,higher education expenditure is second,indicating that these regions need more expenditure on education,especially primary education expenditure.The east has the strongest happiness perception of higher education spending,indicating the need for more higher education spending. |
