IDEAS home Printed from https://ideas.repec.org/p/iza/izadps/dp14489.html
   My bibliography  Save this paper

Does Money Strengthen Our Social Ties? Longitudinal Evidence of Lottery Winners

Author

Listed:
  • Costa-Font, Joan

    (London School of Economics)

  • Powdthavee, Nattavudh

    (Nanyang Technological University, Singapore)

Abstract

We study the effect of lottery wins on social ties and support network in the United Kingdom. On average, we find that winning more in the lottery increases the probability of meeting friends on most days, which is consistent with the complementary effect of income on social ties. The opposite is true with regards to social ties held for more instrumental reasons such as talking to neighbors. Winning more in the lottery also lessens an individual support network consistently with a substitution for instrumental social ties. However, further robustness checks reveal that the average lottery effects are driven by the few outliers of very large wins in the sample, thus suggesting that small to medium-sized wins (

Suggested Citation

  • Costa-Font, Joan & Powdthavee, Nattavudh, 2021. "Does Money Strengthen Our Social Ties? Longitudinal Evidence of Lottery Winners," IZA Discussion Papers 14489, Institute of Labor Economics (IZA).
    • Handle: RePEc:iza:izadps:dp14489
    as

    Download full text from publisher

    File URL: https://docs.iza.org/dp14489.pdf
    Download Restriction: no
    ---><---

    Other versions of this item:

    References listed on IDEAS

    as
    1. Deepti Goel & Kevin Lang, 2019. "Social Ties and the Job Search of Recent Immigrants," ILR Review, Cornell University, ILR School, vol. 72(2), pages 355-381, March.
    2. Terence C. Cheng & Joan Costa-Font & Nattavudh Powdthavee, 2018. "Do You Have to Win It to Fix It? A Longitudinal Study of Lottery Winners and Their Health-Care Demand," American Journal of Health Economics, MIT Press, vol. 4(1), pages 26-50, Winter.
    3. Simon Heß, 2017. "Randomization inference with Stata: A guide and software," Stata Journal, StataCorp LP, vol. 17(3), pages 630-651, September.
    4. Erik Lindqvist & Robert Östling & David Cesarini, 2020. "Long-Run Effects of Lottery Wealth on Psychological Well-Being," The Review of Economic Studies, Review of Economic Studies Ltd, vol. 87(6), pages 2703-2726.
    5. Benedicte Apouey & Andrew E. Clark, 2015. "Winning Big but Feeling no Better? The Effect of Lottery Prizes on Physical and Mental Health," Health Economics, John Wiley & Sons, Ltd., vol. 24(5), pages 516-538, May.
    6. Montgomery, James D, 1991. "Social Networks and Labor-Market Outcomes: Toward an Economic Analysis," American Economic Review, American Economic Association, vol. 81(5), pages 1407-1418, December.
    7. Mui, Vai-Lam, 1995. "The economics of envy," Journal of Economic Behavior & Organization, Elsevier, vol. 26(3), pages 311-336, May.
    8. Young, Alwyn, 2019. "Channeling Fisher: randomization tests and the statistical insignificance of seemingly significant experimental results," LSE Research Online Documents on Economics 101401, London School of Economics and Political Science, LSE Library.
    9. Stephen Leider & Markus M. Möbius & Tanya Rosenblat & Quoc-Anh Do, 2010. "What Do We Expect from Our Friends?," Journal of the European Economic Association, MIT Press, vol. 8(1), pages 120-138, March.
    10. Deepti Goel & Kevin Lang, 2009. "Social Ties and the Job Search of Recent Immigrants," NBER Working Papers 15186, National Bureau of Economic Research, Inc.
    11. Catalina Amuedo-Dorantes & Kusum Mundra, 2007. "Social networks and their impact on the earnings of Mexican Migrants," Demography, Springer;Population Association of America (PAA), vol. 44(4), pages 849-863, November.
    12. Charles F. Manski, 1993. "Identification of Endogenous Social Effects: The Reflection Problem," The Review of Economic Studies, Review of Economic Studies Ltd, vol. 60(3), pages 531-542.
    13. Brennan, Geoffrey & Pettit, Philip, 2000. "The hidden economy of esteem," Economics and Philosophy, Cambridge University Press, vol. 16(1), pages 77-98, April.
    14. Matteo Picchio & Sigrid Suetens & Jan C. van Ours, 2018. "Labour Supply Effects of Winning a Lottery," Economic Journal, Royal Economic Society, vol. 128(611), pages 1700-1729, June.
    15. John F Helliwell & Haifang Huang, 2013. "Comparing the Happiness Effects of Real and On-Line Friends," PLOS ONE, Public Library of Science, vol. 8(9), pages 1-17, September.
    16. Simon, Curtis J & Warner, John T, 1992. "Matchmaker, Matchmaker: The Effect of Old Boy Networks on Job Match Quality, Earnings, and Tenure," Journal of Labor Economics, University of Chicago Press, vol. 10(3), pages 306-330, July.
    17. Stephen Knack & Philip Keefer, 1997. "Does Social Capital Have an Economic Payoff? A Cross-Country Investigation," The Quarterly Journal of Economics, President and Fellows of Harvard College, vol. 112(4), pages 1251-1288.
    18. Peter Kuhn & Peter Kooreman & Adriaan Soetevent & Arie Kapteyn, 2011. "The Effects of Lottery Prizes on Winners and Their Neighbors: Evidence from the Dutch Postcode Lottery," American Economic Review, American Economic Association, vol. 101(5), pages 2226-2247, August.
    19. Konrad B. Burchardi & Tarek A. Hassan, 2013. "The Economic Impact of Social Ties: Evidence from German Reunification," The Quarterly Journal of Economics, President and Fellows of Harvard College, vol. 128(3), pages 1219-1271.
    20. repec:hal:spmain:info:hdl:2441/5qi1l9g8bm8p1as7q6imhg03ej is not listed on IDEAS
    21. Nguyen, Cuong Viet, 2021. "Can money buy friends? Evidence from a natural experiment," European Economic Review, Elsevier, vol. 136(C).
    22. Easterlin, Richard A, 2001. "Income and Happiness: Towards an Unified Theory," Economic Journal, Royal Economic Society, vol. 111(473), pages 465-484, July.
    23. repec:hal:pseose:halshs-01155641 is not listed on IDEAS
    24. Menchik, Paul L. & Weisbrod, Burton A., 1987. "Volunteer labor supply," Journal of Public Economics, Elsevier, vol. 32(2), pages 159-183, March.
    25. George A. Akerlof, 1997. "Social Distance and Social Decisions," Econometrica, Econometric Society, vol. 65(5), pages 1005-1028, September.
    26. Nattavudh Powdthavee, 2010. "How much does money really matter? Estimating the causal effects of income on happiness," Empirical Economics, Springer, vol. 39(1), pages 77-92, August.
    27. Mariska Horst & Hilde Coffé, 2012. "How Friendship Network Characteristics Influence Subjective Well-Being," Social Indicators Research: An International and Interdisciplinary Journal for Quality-of-Life Measurement, Springer, vol. 107(3), pages 509-529, July.
    28. Matteo Picchio & Sigrid Suetens & Jan C. van Ours, 2018. "Labour Supply Effects of Winning a Lottery," Economic Journal, Royal Economic Society, vol. 128(611), pages 1700-1729, June.
    29. Alwyn Young, 2019. "Channeling Fisher: Randomization Tests and the Statistical Insignificance of Seemingly Significant Experimental Results," The Quarterly Journal of Economics, President and Fellows of Harvard College, vol. 134(2), pages 557-598.
    30. Lorenz Goette & David Huffman & Stephan Meier, 2012. "The Impact of Social Ties on Group Interactions: Evidence from Minimal Groups and Randomly Assigned Real Groups," American Economic Journal: Microeconomics, American Economic Association, vol. 4(1), pages 101-115, February.
    Full references (including those not matched with items on IDEAS)

    Most related items

    These are the items that most often cite the same works as this one and are cited by the same works as this one.
    1. Glitz, Albrecht, 2017. "Coworker networks in the labour market," Labour Economics, Elsevier, vol. 44(C), pages 218-230.
    2. Kim, Seonghoon & Koh, Kanghyock, 2021. "The effects of income on health: Evidence from lottery wins in Singapore," Journal of Health Economics, Elsevier, vol. 76(C).
    3. Ian M. Schmutte, 2015. "Job Referral Networks and the Determination of Earnings in Local Labor Markets," Journal of Labor Economics, University of Chicago Press, vol. 33(1), pages 1-32.
    4. Tommaso Colussi, 2013. "Migrant Networks and Job Search Outcomes: Evidence from Displaced Workers," Working Papers 706, Queen Mary University of London, School of Economics and Finance.
    5. Isabelle Chort, 2017. "Migrant Network and Immigrants’ Occupational Mismatch," Journal of Development Studies, Taylor & Francis Journals, vol. 53(11), pages 1806-1821, November.
    6. Lorenzo Cappellari & Konstantinos Tatsiramos, 2010. "Friends’ Networks and Job Finding Rates," DISCE - Quaderni dell'Istituto di Economia dell'Impresa e del Lavoro ieil0059, Università Cattolica del Sacro Cuore, Dipartimenti e Istituti di Scienze Economiche (DISCE).
    7. Frijters, Paul & Clark, Andrew E. & Krekel, Christian & Layard, Richard, 2020. "A happy choice: wellbeing as the goal of government," Behavioural Public Policy, Cambridge University Press, vol. 4(2), pages 126-165, July.
    8. Fuchs-Schündeln, N. & Hassan, T.A., 2016. "Natural Experiments in Macroeconomics," Handbook of Macroeconomics, in: J. B. Taylor & Harald Uhlig (ed.), Handbook of Macroeconomics, edition 1, volume 2, chapter 0, pages 923-1012, Elsevier.
    9. Andreas Lichter & Max Löffler & Sebastian Siegloch, 2021. "The Long-Term Costs of Government Surveillance: Insights from Stasi Spying in East Germany," Journal of the European Economic Association, European Economic Association, vol. 19(2), pages 741-789.
    10. Colussi, Tommaso, 2015. "Migrant Networks and Job Search Outcomes: Evidence from Displaced Workers," IZA Discussion Papers 9339, Institute of Labor Economics (IZA).
    11. Christian Dustmann & Albrecht Glitz & Uta Schönberg & Herbert Brücker, 2016. "Referral-based Job Search Networks," The Review of Economic Studies, Review of Economic Studies Ltd, vol. 83(2), pages 514-546.
    12. Bengi YANIK-İLHAN & Ayşe Aylin BAYAR & Nebile KORUCU-GÜMÜŞOĞLU, 2019. "How Do Informal Social Networks Impact on Labor Earnings in Turkey?," Sosyoekonomi Journal, Sosyoekonomi Society, issue 27(41).
    13. Joan Costa-Font & Mario Györi, 2023. "Income windfalls and overweight: evidence from lottery wins," Empirical Economics, Springer, vol. 64(5), pages 2005-2026, May.
    14. Nguyen, Cuong Viet, 2021. "Can money buy friends? Evidence from a natural experiment," European Economic Review, Elsevier, vol. 136(C).
    15. Federico Cingano & Alfonso Rosolia, 2012. "People I Know: Job Search and Social Networks," Journal of Labor Economics, University of Chicago Press, vol. 30(2), pages 291-332.
    16. Hsuan-Hua Huang & Hsing-Wen Han & Kuang-Ta Lo & Tzu-Ting Yang, 2023. "Liquidity Constraints, Cash Windfalls, and Entrepreneurship: Evidence from Administrative Data on Lottery Winners," Papers 2303.17029, arXiv.org.
    17. Joan Costa-Font & Mario Györi, 2023. "Income windfalls and overweight: evidence from lottery wins," Empirical Economics, Springer, vol. 64(5), pages 2005-2026, May.
    18. Schmutte, Ian M., 2016. "Labor markets with endogenous job referral networks: Theory and empirical evidence," Labour Economics, Elsevier, vol. 42(C), pages 30-42.
    19. Xin, Guangyi, 2017. "Social Interaction and Labour Market Outcomes," MPRA Paper 80976, University Library of Munich, Germany.
    20. Tatsiramos, Konstantinos & Cappellari, Lorenzo, 2011. "Friends’ networks and job finding rates," ISER Working Paper Series 2011-21, Institute for Social and Economic Research.

    More about this item

    Keywords

    income; neighborhood; friendships; unearned income; socialization effect; lottery; social ties;
    All these keywords.

    JEL classification:

    • Z1 - Other Special Topics - - Cultural Economics

    NEP fields

    This paper has been announced in the following NEP Reports:

    Statistics

    Access and download statistics

    Corrections

    All material on this site has been provided by the respective publishers and authors. You can help correct errors and omissions. When requesting a correction, please mention this item's handle: RePEc:iza:izadps:dp14489. See general information about how to correct material in RePEc.

    If you have authored this item and are not yet registered with RePEc, we encourage you to do it here. This allows to link your profile to this item. It also allows you to accept potential citations to this item that we are uncertain about.

    If CitEc recognized a bibliographic reference but did not link an item in RePEc to it, you can help with this form .

    If you know of missing items citing this one, you can help us creating those links by adding the relevant references in the same way as above, for each refering item. If you are a registered author of this item, you may also want to check the "citations" tab in your RePEc Author Service profile, as there may be some citations waiting for confirmation.

    For technical questions regarding this item, or to correct its authors, title, abstract, bibliographic or download information, contact: Holger Hinte (email available below). General contact details of provider: https://edirc.repec.org/data/izaaade.html .

    Please note that corrections may take a couple of weeks to filter through the various RePEc services.

    IDEAS is a RePEc service. RePEc uses bibliographic data supplied by the respective publishers.