Religiosity and Life Satisfaction in Russia: Evidence from the Russian Data

Maksym Bryukhanov () and Igor Fedotenkov

HSE Working papers from National Research University Higher School of Economics

Abstract: Does religiosity make you happy? Many studies document positive associations between religiosity and various forms of subjective wellbeing. This is also true for general life satisfaction in normal economic conditions and in the case of economic shocks. However, both life satisfaction and religiosity may be correlated with unobserved individual and household traits or unobserved life shocks which can relate to reverse causality. These facts result in endogeneity and make ordinary least square estimates biased. In our study, we employ two methods to avoid possible endogeneity issues – we use fixed effects and instrumental variable estimations. Using Russian Longitudinal Monitoring Survey (RLMS-HSE) data and different econometric models, we document positive associations between religiosity and life satisfaction. In particular, fixed effect and instrumental variable regressions provide evidence for a positive effect of religiosity.

Keywords: Life satisfaction; religiosity; RLMS-HSE; endogeneity (search for similar items in EconPapers)
JEL-codes: D10 Z12 (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Pages: 35 pages
Date: 2017
New Economics Papers: this item is included in nep-cis, nep-hap and nep-tra
References: View complete reference list from CitEc
Citations: View citations in EconPapers (2)

Published in WP BRP Series: Economics / EC, November 2017, pages 1-35

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https://wp.hse.ru/data/2017/11/13/1158251830/180EC2017.pdf (application/pdf)

Related works:
Working Paper: Religiosity and life satisfaction in Russia: Evidence from the Russian data (2017)
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Persistent link: https://EconPapers.repec.org/RePEc:hig:wpaper:180/ec/2017

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