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Are Happier People Better Citizens?

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  • Cahit Guven

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Abstract

This paper presents evidence on causal influence of happiness on social capital and trust using German Socio-Economic Panel. Exploiting the unexplained cross-sectional variation in individual happiness (residuals) in 1984 to eliminate the endogeneity problem, the paper nds that happier people trust others more, and importantly, help create more social capital. Specifically, they have a higher desire to vote, perform more volunteer work, and more frequently participate in public activities. They also have a higher respect for law and order, hold more association memberships, are more attached to their neighborhood, and extend more help to others. Residual happiness appears to be an indicator of optimism, and has an inverse U-shaped relationship with social capital measures. The findings also suggest that the relationship between happiness and social capital strengthened in the world in the last decade.

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File URL: http://www.deakin.edu.au/buslaw/aef/workingpapers/papers/2009_4.pdf
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Bibliographic Info

Paper provided by Deakin University, Faculty of Business and Law, School of Accounting, Economics and Finance in its series Economics Series with number 2009_04.

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Date of creation: 14 Apr 2009
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Handle: RePEc:dkn:econwp:eco_2009_04

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Keywords: happiness; trust; social capital; optimism.;

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  1. Are happier people better citizens?
    by Ariel Goldring in Free Market Mojo on 2010-04-26 06:01:55
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Cited by:
  1. Krause, Annabelle, 2012. "Don't Worry, Be Happy? Happiness and Reemployment," IZA Discussion Papers 7107, Institute for the Study of Labor (IZA).
  2. Jan Ott, 2010. "Greater Happiness for a Greater Number: Some Non-controversial Options for Governments," Journal of Happiness Studies, Springer, vol. 11(5), pages 631-647, October.

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