Binder, Martin and Freytag, Andreas (2013) Volunteering, subjective well-being and public policy. Journal of Economic Psychology, 34 (1). pp. 97-119. ISSN 0167-4870

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Abstract

We apply matching estimators to the large-scale British Household Panel Survey (BHPS) data set to estimate the impact of volunteering on subjective well-being. We take into account personality traits that could jointly determine volunteering behaviour and subjective well-being. We find that the impact of regular volunteering on subjective well-being is positive and increasing over time if regular 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 for those who volunteer regularly. We test the robustness of our findings and discuss their relevance for public policy.

Item Type:	Article
Schools and Departments:	School of Business, Management and Economics > SPRU - Science Policy Research Unit
Subjects:	H Social Sciences
Depositing User:	Martin Binder
Date Deposited:	10 Dec 2012 17:00
Last Modified:	03 Apr 2013 11:06
URI:	http://srodev.sussex.ac.uk/id/eprint/43351

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