Are virtuous People Happier? Evidence from Italy

• Autorzy: Diego Lubian
• Języki publikacji: EN

Abstrakty

EN

The strength of norms of civic cooperation are known to be important for measurable macroeconomic outcomes, such us GNP and investment growth. At the individual level, lack of civic virtue or selfishness in interpersonal relationships is often found to be negatively correlated with happiness. In this paper we provide new empirical evidence on the relationship between happiness and civic virtue using data from the Survey of Italian Households' Income and Wealth. Besides regression results confirming the positive correlation between civic behavior and happiness, we provide novel empirical evidence of a positive correlation between happiness and selfish/asocial behavior. Our findings indicate that people with extreme views, either in the civic direction or in the selfish one, are happier than the others. In addition, the two effects are of a different order of magnitude and we find that the effect on happiness of having a selfish attitude is greater than the pro-social one.(original abstract)

Słowa kluczowe

EN

Economics of happines; Social behaviour

PL

Ekonomia szczęścia; Zachowania społeczne

• Czasopismo: Economics & Sociology
• Rocznik: 2020
• Tom: 13
• Numer: nr 1
• Strony: 146--164

Twórcy

autor

Diego Lubian

• University of Verona, Verona, Italy

Bibliografia

• Banfield, E. (1925). The moral basis of a backward society. Free Press, New York.
• Bartolini, S., Bilancini, E., & Sarracino, F. (2016). Social Capital Predicts Happiness Over Time, pages 174-196. Oxford University Press.
• Bischoff, I., & Krauskopf, T. (2015). Warm glow of giving collectively-An experimental study. Journal of Economic Psychology, 51, 210-218.
• Campos-Vazquez, R. M., & Cuilty, E. (2014). The role of emotions on risk aversion: a prospect theory experiment. Journal of Behavioral and Experimental Economics, 50, 1-9.
• Capra, M. C. (2004). Mood-driven behavior in strategic interactions. American Economic Review, 94(2), 367-372.
• Clark, A. E., Flèche, S., Layard, R., Powdthavee, N., & Ward, G. (2019). The origins of happiness: the science of well-being over the life course. Princeton University Press.
• Cubitt, R. P., Drouvelis, M., Gächter, S., & Kabalin, R. (2011). Moral judgments in social dilemmas: How bad is free riding?. Journal of Public Economics, 95(3-4), 253-264.
• Curini, L., Jou, W., & Memoli, V. (2014). How moderates and extremists find happiness: Ideological orientation, citizen-government proximity, and life satisfaction. International Political Science Review, 35(2), 129-152.
• Delis, M. D., & Mylonidis, N. (2015). Trust, happiness, and households' financial decisions. Journal of financial stability, 20, 82-92.
• Tella, R. D., MacCulloch, R. J., & Oswald, A. J. (2003). The macroeconomics of happiness. Review of Economics and Statistics, 85(4), 809-827.
• Diener, E., Suh, E. M., Lucas, R. E., & Smith, H. L. (1999). Subjective well-being: Three decades of progress. Psychological bulletin, 125(2), 276-302.
• Dolan, P., Peasgood, T., & White, M. (2008). Do we really know what makes us happy? A review of the economic literature on the factors associated with subjective wellbeing. Journal of economic psychology, 29(1), 94-122.
• Drichoutis, A. C., & Nayga Jr, R. M. (2013). Eliciting risk and time preferences under induced mood states. The Journal of Socio-Economics, 45, 18-27.
• Dunn, E. W., Aknin, L. B., & Norton, M. I. (2008). Spending money on others promotes happiness. Science, 319, 1687-1688.
• Easterlin, R. (1973). Does money buy happiness?. The Public Interest, 30, 3-10.
• Easterlin, R. (1974). Does economic growth improve the human lot? In David, A. and Reder, M., editors, Nations and Households in Economic Growth: Essays in Honour of Moses Abramovitz, pages 499-533. Academic Press, New York.
• Easterlin, R. (1995). Will raising the incomes of all increase the happiness os all?. Journal of Economic Behavior and Organization, 27, 35-47.
• Forgas, J. P. (1995). Mood and judgment: the affect infusion model (AIM). Psychological bulletin, 117(1), 39-66.
• Helliwell, J. F. (2006). Well-being, social capital and public policy: what's new?. The Economic Journal, 116(510), C34-C45.
• Helliwell, J. F., Huang, H., Norton, M. B., and Wang, S. (2019). Happiness at Different Ages: The Social Context Matters, pages 455-481. Springer International Publishing.
• Hu, Y., Wang, D., Pang, K., Xu, G., & Guo, J. (2015). The effect of emotion and time pressure on risk decision-making. Journal of Risk Research, 18(5), 637-650.
• Iceland, J., & Ludwig-Dehm, S. (2019). Black-white differences in happiness, 1972- 2014. Social science research, 77, 16-29.
• Ifcher, J., & Zarghamee, H. (2011). Happiness and time preference: The effect of positive affect in a random-assignment experiment. American Economic Review, 101(7), 3109-29.
• Inglehart, R., Haerpfer, C., Moreno, A., Welzel, C., Kizilova, K., Diez-Medrano, J., Lagos, M., Norris, P., Ponarin, E., and et al. (eds.), B. P. (2014). World Values Survey: All Rounds - Country-Pooled Datafile Version. JD Systems Institute, Madrid.
• Isen, A. M., & Patrick, R. (1983). The effect of positive feelings on risk taking: When the chips are down. Organizational behavior and human performance, 31(2), 194-202.
• Jackson, J. (2019). Happy partisans and extreme political views: The impact of national versus local representation on well-being. European Journal of Political Economy, 58, 192-202.
• James, Jr, H. S. (2011). Is the just man a happy man? An empirical study of the relationship between ethics and subjective well-being. Kyklos, 64(2), 193-212.
• Kahyaoğlu, M. B., & Ican, Ö. (2017). Risk aversion and emotions in DoND. International Journal of Economics and Finance, 9(1), 32-46.
• Koch, C. (2013). The virtue ethics hypothesis: Is there a nexus between virtues and well-being? Technical report, Verein fur Socialpolitik / German Economic Association.
• Konow, J. (2010). Mixed feelings: Theories of and evidence on giving. Journal of Public Economics, 94(3-4), 279-297.
• Lane, T. (2017). How does happiness relate to economic behaviour? A review of the literature. Journal of Behavioral and Experimental Economics, 68, 62-78.
• MacKerron, G. (2012). Happiness economics from 35000 feet. Journal of Economic Surveys, 26(4), 705-735.
• Mill, J. (1991). On Liberty and Other Essays. Oxford University Press, Oxford.
• Olson, M. (1965). The Logic of Collective Action. Public Goods and the Theory of Groups. Harvard University Press, Cambridge (Mass.).
• Oreopoulos, P., & Salvanes, K. G. (2011). Priceless: The nonpecuniary benefits of schooling. Journal of Economic Perspectives, 25(1), 159-84.
• Putnam, R. (1993). Making Democracy Work: Civic Traditions in Modern Italy. Princeton University Press, Princeton (NJ).
• Shields, M. A., Price, S. W., & Wooden, M. (2009). Life satisfaction and the economic and social characteristics of neighbourhoods. Journal of Population Economics, 22(2), 421443.
• Stavrova, O., Schlösser, T., & Fetchenhauer, D. (2013). Are virtuous people happy all around the world? Civic virtue, antisocial punishment, and subjective well-being across cultures. Personality and Social Psychology Bulletin, 39(7), 927-942.
• Stevenson, B., & Wolfers, J. (2009). The paradox of declining female happiness. American Economic Journal: Economic Policy, 1(2), 190-225.
• Veenhoven, R. (2010). Capability and happiness: Conceptual difference and reality links. The Journal of Socio-Economics, 39(3), 344-350.
• Yechiam, E., Telpaz, A., Krupenia, S., & Rafaeli, A. (2016). Unhappiness intensifies the avoidance of frequent losses while happiness overcomes it. Frontiers in psychology, 7, 1703.

Identyfikatory

DOI

10.14254/2071-789X.2020/13-1/10