Analyses of economic development often focus on objective measures of welfare, such as consumption or
fulfillment of “basic needs”, such as food, shelter and security. In recent years, however, measures of
subjective well-being, or happiness, have gained increasing attention.1 The vast majority of academic
papers on happiness focus on developed countries.2 In contrast, this paper studies the determinants of
subjective well-being in rural Vietnam. To our knowledge, this is the first quantitative study of happiness in
Vietnam.