Is Volunteering Rewarding in Itself?

Stephan Meier and Alois Stutzer

No 180, IEW - Working Papers from Institute for Empirical Research in Economics - University of Zurich

Abstract: Volunteering constitutes one of the most important pro-social activities. Following Adam Smith, helping others is the way to higher individual well-being. This view contrasts with the selfish utility maximizer who avoids costs from helping others. The two rival views are studied empirically. We find robust evidence that volunteers are more satisfied with their life than non-volunteers. Causality is addressed taking advantage of a natural experiment: the collapse of East Germany and its infrastructure of volunteering. People who accidentally lost their opportunities for volunteering are compared to people who experienced no change in their volunteer status.

Keywords: happiness; pro-social behavior; subjective well-being; volunteering (search for similar items in EconPapers)
JEL-codes: D64 I31 J22 Z13 (search for similar items in EconPapers)
New Economics Papers: this item is included in nep-cbe and nep-edu
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Citations: View citations in EconPapers (174)

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Related works:
Journal Article: Is Volunteering Rewarding in Itself? (2008)
Working Paper: Is Volunteering Rewarding in Itself? (2004)
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Persistent link: https://EconPapers.repec.org/RePEc:zur:iewwpx:180

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