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Volunteering, Happiness and Public Policy

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  • Martin Binder
  • Andreas Freytag

Abstract

Is the activity of volunteering something that benefits the volunteer as well as the recipient of the volunteer’s activities? We analyze this relationship and apply matching estimators to the large-scale British Household Panel Survey (BHPS) data set to estimate the causal impact of volunteering on happiness. We take into account personality traits that could jointly determine volunteering behaviour and happiness. We find that the causal impact of volunteering on happiness is positive and increasing over time if volunteering is sustained. In a quantile analysis, we find that this effect seems to be driven by reducing the unhappiness of the less happy quantiles of the well-being distribution. We test the robustness of our findings and discuss their relevance for public policy.

Suggested Citation

  • Martin Binder & Andreas Freytag, 2012. "Volunteering, Happiness and Public Policy," Papers on Economics and Evolution 2012-07, Philipps University Marburg, Department of Geography.
    • Handle: RePEc:esi:evopap:2012-07
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    References listed on IDEAS

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    As found by EconAcademics.org, the blog aggregator for Economics research:
    1. Volunteers are happy
      by Economic Logician in Economic Logic on 2012-04-27 19:33:00

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    More about this item

    Keywords

    volunteering; happiness; altruism; generosity; public policy; BHPS;
    All these keywords.

    JEL classification:

    • D6 - Microeconomics - - Welfare Economics
    • D64 - Microeconomics - - Welfare Economics - - - Altruism; Philanthropy; Intergenerational Transfers
    • Z1 - Other Special Topics - - Cultural Economics

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