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on Economics of Happiness |
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Issue of 2022‒07‒11
three papers chosen by |
| By: | Paul Dolan; Christian Krekel; Helen Lee; Claire Marshall; Ganga Shreedhar; Allison Smith |
| Abstract: | There is a strong suggestion from the existing literature that volunteering improves the wellbeing of those who give up their time to help others, but much of it is correlational and not causal. In this paper, we estimate the wellbeing benefits from volunteering for England's National Health Service (NHS) Volunteer Responders programme, which was set up in response to the Covid-19 pandemic. Using a sample of over 9,000 volunteers, we exploit the oversubscription of the programme and the random assignment of volunteering tasks to estimate causal wellbeing returns, across multiple counterfactuals. We find that active volunteers report significantly higher life satisfaction, feelings of worthwhileness, social connectedness, and belonging to their local communities. A social welfare analysis shows that the benefits of the programme were at least 140 times greater than its costs. Our findings advance our understanding of the ways in which pro-social behaviours can improve personal wellbeing as well as social welfare. |
| Keywords: | subjective wellbeing, volunteering, pro-social action, quasi-natural experiment, social welfare analysis, Covid-19 |
| Date: | 2021–05–31 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:cep:cepdps:dp1772&r= |
| By: | Kanninen, Ohto; Böckerman, Petri; Suoniemi, Ilpo |
| Abstract: | We propose a method of studying the value of insurance. For this purpose, we analyze well-being of the same individuals, comparing sick and healthy years in German panel survey data on life satisfaction. To impose structure on the income–wellbeing gradient, we fit a flexible utility function to the data, focusing on the differences in marginal utility in the sick and the healthy state, by allowing for a “fixed cost of sickness”. We find that marginal utility of income is higher in the sick state. We use our estimates to gauge the value of sickness insurance for Baily-Chetty type optimal policy calculations. We also show that the income–wellbeing gradient has steepened over time in Germany and we use the fitted model to characterize this change. |
| Keywords: | life satisfaction state dependence risk aversion social insurance optimal benefits sickness absence |
| JEL: | C13 H55 I13 |
| Date: | 2022–06–02 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:pra:mprapa:113269&r= |
| By: | Rafael Ravina-Ripoll; Estela Núñez-Barriopedro; David Almorza-Gomar; Luis Bayardo Tobar-Pesantez |
| Abstract: | Actualmente, las entidades trabajan en mercados altamente competitivos y con continuos cambios económicos, sociales, medioambientales que hacen que los modelos de gestión deban estar alineados con los Objetivos de Desarrollo Sostenible (ODS). Concretamente, este trabajo se encuentra alineado con el ODS 12 “producción y consumo responsable”. El objetivo principal de este trabajo es diseñar un modelo productivo enfocado a una orientación a la marca que apuesta por el desarrollo sostenible en cada una de sus dimensiones y en relación con el happiness management. Para ello, se ha desarrollado un estudio correlacional transversal con datos primarios mediante encuesta con una muestra de 216 directores de pymes de Andalucía en los sectores de la construcción, industria y servicios. El análisis se ha llevado a cabo mediante el diseño de un modelo de ecuaciones estructurales (SEM), que ha permitido analizar las principales dimensiones de la orientación de la marca, y, en consecuencia, estudiar su efecto en el happiness management de las pymes. Los resultados alcanzados ponen de manifiesto que la dimensión orientación a la marca influye directamente en la cultura empresarial del happiness management. |
| Keywords: | Orientación a la Marca, Happiness Management, sostenibilidad, Responsabilidad Social. |
| JEL: | L84 M15 |
| Date: | 2022–06 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:ovr:docfra:2202&r= |