Rubia Valente (p), Adam Okulicz-Kozaryn (p)

Chiara Garau

Research has shown that people in the developed world tend to be less happy in cities than in rural areas—the so called “urban-rural happiness gradient.” The recent COVID-19 pandemic offers an opportunity to explore how cities were impacted. Not all groups of people experienced the pandemic equally and we are particularly interested in exploring how living in a big city upended life during the pandemic, resulting in less happiness. One of the disadvantages of large cities and dense settlements is the greater spread of infectious diseases compared to rural areas. Thus, in this paper, we examine how the COVID pandemic affected happiness in the largest cities compared to rural areas by exploring the World Value Survey and the General Social Survey datasets.

Kouhei Kikuchi, Soushi Suzuki (p), Peter Nijkamp

Darja Reuschke

Education is one of the important indicators for evaluating the long-run economic potential of a country. Its role has been extensively examined in the empirical literature. An important strand of model-based research on the evaluation of educational performance originates from Data Envelopment Analysis (DEA). This operational approach has recently gained much popularity and has also led to a range of new methodological DEA variants. For example, a Distance Friction Minimization (DFM) approach is a method developed in the context of DEA in order to generate an appropriate (non-radial) efficiency-improving projection model, for both input reduction and output increase. DFM however, has an important limitation in that only one input/output item which most contributes to a DEA efficiency increase has a projection, whereas other input/output items have no projection at all (in most cases). Therefore, relaxing the restriction caused by the specific input/output item deserves more attention in DFM projections. Based on the above mentioned DFM approach, this paper proposes a new Improved Ratio Minimization (IRM) approach which enables to allocate an improvement projection to several other weighted input/output items. It therefore extends the restrictive DFM projection on one specific input/output item. This paper aims to test empirically the new approach on the basis of an educational efficiency evaluation of European countries, by considering public and private spending on education as input items and academic performance (reading, mathematics and science) as output items. In particular, this paper examines in more detail the role of ‘bullying’ as an undesirable output, using a recently developed Value Inversion model. This study thus provides an efficiency improvement projection of educational efficiency of European countries based on IRM and DFM approaches, compares differences in results, and discusses the usefulness of the IRM approach.

Jens Fyhn Lykke Sørensen (p)

Soushi Suzuki

At the 62nd ERSA Congress, I suggest presenting my paper entitled "The rural happiness paradox in developed countries", which was published in 2021. In this paper, a national Danish survey is used to explore the rural happiness paradox in developed countries. This paradox revolves around the observation that rural residents tend to report higher subjective well-being than urban residents in developed countries. Based on three different rural-urban classifications, the paper provides a solid confirmation of the rural happiness paradox in Denmark. The paper tests three hypotheses regarding the factors behind the rural happiness paradox and finds strong support for two of the hypotheses. Thus, higher bonding social capital in rural areas and higher access to nature amenities in rural areas were found to contribute to the rural happiness paradox in Denmark. As for the third hypothesis, the paper finds no significant evidence that rural-urban differences in spatial location satisfaction (measured by the correspondence between actual and preferred residential location on the rural-urban continuum) contribute to the rural happiness paradox in Denmark.

Paulo Reis Mourao, Alina Popescu (p)

Jens Fyhn Lykke Sørensen

Happiness and innovation appear to be interconnected, as previous research conducted at the organizational level has so far demonstrated. However, studies on the possible relationship between happiness and innovation seem to lack at different spatial levels, revealing a promising research field with practical implications for city managers, regional authorities, and policymakers. This research aims to study the existing relationship among innovation output and happiness-related measurements at the spatial level. Capitalising on its own existing research on innovation spatial autocorrelation processes, this study proposed to provide panel data spatial autocorrelation outputs considering various variables measuring happiness and innovation at national and regional levels. Our effort will also consider the possibility of detailing at the city level whenever possible.

Alina Popescu

Abstract
This paper explores the relationship between residential segregation and well-being. External
well-being indices are obtained for Swedish individuals through register data. The mean wellbeing of 13 scales of bespoke neighbourhoods are classified into 12 clusters. Neighbourhood
well-being is found to strongly correlate with more traditional measures of segregation. Areas
in cities found in more traditional segregation studies have lower well-being. Half of the
working population is unlikely to have a neighbour with dissimilar well-being; for 14% this
means that they live in a well-being-deprived neighbourhood. In terms of well-being
components, we find that low-scoring areas are deprived in most well-being dimensions, while
middle and high-scoring neighbourhoods vary more in domains they score well in. Because of
the high association between previous findings of segregation research and neighbourhood
well-being, it remains unclear whether the distribution of well-being is an outcome of
residential segregation or a form of residential segregation in itself.

Chiara Garau (p), Giulia Desogus

Gijs Westra

Over the past decade, the concept of a smart island (based on technological and digital paradigms) has gradually impacted the governance of island contexts, where local governments have implemented digitisation policies and integrated planning with artificial intelligence to enhance the quality of life for their residents. Due to their condition of isolation from the mainland, islands continue to be a distinct geographical cluster in terms of spatial, social, environmental, and economic underdevelopment. This demonstrates that the smart island concept cannot be limited to digital transformation because the digitisation processes are insufficient for the sustainable development of such systems. This greatly limits the improvement of the quality of life and well-being of local citizens. Indeed, islands should find alternative solutions to the significant issues posed by chronic and permanent social deficits resulting from spatial and island dynamics. In this context, this paper aims to identify a key analysis that combines the component of human happiness in the smart island paradigm, analysing the relationship between digitisation, sustainable development, and human well-being from the perspective of spatial planning of islands. To this end, the authors schematise types, classifications, and levels of smart performance, as well as common issues and resolutions in island contexts, linked with the quality of life, human well-being, and happiness in the last decade. This article represents the first phase of a broader research project on human happiness in smart island development strategies. It proposes a systematic approach and establishes the basis for understanding how the concept of human happiness can change the normal management perspective of the smart island contexts.

Keywords: Smart Islands; Spatial Planning; Sustainable Development Goals; Human Happiness; Human Well-being