Trust, Happiness, and Pro-social Behavior

Stefano Carattini and Matthias Roesti ()

No 2015, Economics Working Paper Series from University of St. Gallen, School of Economics and Political Science

Abstract: This paper combines several large-scale surveys with different identification strategies to shed new light on the determinants of cooperative behavior. We provide evidence indicating that the well-being maximizing level of trust is above the income maximizing level. Higher trust is also linked to more cooperative and pro-social behaviors, including the private provision of global public goods such as climate change mitigation. Consistent with “warm glow” theories of pro-social behavior, our results show that individuals may enjoy being more cooperative than what would lead them to maximize their income, which is reflected in higher levels of well-being.

Keywords: Cooperation; generalized trust; pro-social behavior; pro-environmental behavior; well-being (search for similar items in EconPapers)
JEL-codes: D64 H41 I31 Q50 (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Pages: 105 pages
Date: 2020-09
New Economics Papers: this item is included in nep-hap, nep-res and nep-soc
References: View references in EconPapers View complete reference list from CitEc
Citations: View citations in EconPapers (2)

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Related works:
Working Paper: Trust, Happiness, and Pro-Social Behavior (2020)
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Persistent link: https://EconPapers.repec.org/RePEc:usg:econwp:2020:15

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