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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. • Research points to higher well-being among rural dwellers in developed counties. • This tendency in previous findings can be termed the rural happiness paradox (RHP). • The RHP is robustly confirmed in Denmark using three rural-urban classifications. • The paper tests three hypotheses regarding the possible causes of the RHP. • Differences in social capital and access to nature are main factors behind the RHP. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The world’s poor are especially vulnerable to environmental disasters, including the adverse consequences of climate change. This creates a challenge for climate justice advocates who seek to ensure that those least responsible for causing climate change do not bear unwanted burdens of mitigation. One way to promote climate justice could be to pay particular attention to the environmental policy preferences of citizens from poorer, lower-emitting countries. This paper examines opinions on environment–economy trade-offs and willingness to make personal financial contributions to protect the environment among residents of 42 developed and developing countries using data from the 2005–2008 World Values Survey, the 2010 Climate Risk Index, and World Bank development indicators. Results reveal that individuals in developing countries are less likely to support policies to prioritize environmental protection over economic growth but are more willing to donate personal income for pro-environmental efforts compared to citizens of more developed nations. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper addresses the debate concerning the influence of cultural and economic contexts on the adoption of modern values by individual members of society. We have applied for this purpose a multilevel analysis (HLM), using the World Value Survey (WVS) and European Value Survey (EVS) data bank for 36 of the countries included in the 2000 wave. The cultural and economic higher-level variables are represented by religious zones (Protestant, Catholic, Ex-Socialist Catholic and Islamic) and level of economic development (Real Gross Domestic Product per Capita). The individual-level variables include age, gender, schooling and religiousness (N =51792). The dependent variables consist of two measures: political liberal values (PLV) and social liberal values (SLV). The results of the HLM analysis indicate that although most of the variance in both measures derives from differences in individual characteristics across countries, there is also strong evidence for contextual effects of religious zones and economic development, when each factor is examined by itself. Yet because of multi-colinearity, we cannot estimate the effects of the two higher-level variables independently of each other. We end by discussing the theoretical and methodological implications of our findings. [Copyright &y& Elsevier]