The role of sociability and relational goods has generally been neglected in the formulation of standard economics textbook preferences. Our findings show that relational goods have significant and positive effects on self declared life satisfaction, net of the impact of other concurring factors. We also document that such effects persist when the equally significant inverse causality nexus is taken into account. This implies that a more intense relational life enhances life satisfaction and, at the same time, happier people have a more lively social life. Finally, we show that gender, age and education matter by showing that the effects of sociability on happiness are stronger for women, older and less educated individuals.
Download Info
To download:
If you experience problems downloading a file, check if you have the
proper application to
view it first. Information about this may be contained
in the File-Format links below. In case of further problems read
the IDEAS help
file. Note that these files are not on the IDEAS
site. Please be patient as the files may be large.
Publisher Info
Paper provided by Tor Vergata University, CEIS in its series CEIS Research Paper with number
117.
Length: 27 pages Date of creation: 14 Jul 2008 Date of revision:
14 Jul 2008 Handle: RePEc:rtv:ceisrp:117
Contact details of provider: Postal: CEIS - Centre for Economic and International Studies - Faculty of Economics - University of Rome "Tor Vergata" - Via Columbia, 2 00133 Roma Phone: +39062040234 Fax: +39062020687 Email: Web page: http://www.ceistorvergata.it More information through EDIRC
Order Information: Postal: CEIS - Centre for Economic and International Studies - Faculty of Economics - University of Rome "Tor Vergata" - Via Columbia, 2 00133 Roma Email: Web: http://www.ceistorvergata.it
For technical questions regarding this item, or to correct its listing, contact: (Marcello Di Biagio).
References listed on IDEAS Please report citation or reference errors to , or , if you are the registered author of the cited work, log in to your RePEc Author Service profile, click on "citations" and make appropriate adjustments.:
Stephan Meier & Alois Stutzer, 2008.
"Is Volunteering Rewarding in Itself?,"
Economica,
London School of Economics and Political Science, vol. 75(297), pages 39-59, 02.
[Downloadable!] (restricted)