Publication type
Research Paper
Author
Publication date
October 1, 2005
Abstract:
Previous attempts at estimating causal relationships between the extent of social
contact with friends and happiness rely heavily on standard cross-section econometric
techniques, and therefore do not control for unobserved inborn heterogeneity and
time-varying endogeneity. Using a rich panel dataset from the British Household
Panel Survey, this paper estimates micro-econometric life satisfaction equations and
exploit both single and simultaneous equations panel data estimators to address both
sources of endogeneity: unobserved heterogeneity and time-variant endogeneity.
Conditioning on these unobservables, I find a strong causal effect of friendship on
happiness, which has been greatly understated at the cross-section.
Subjects
Link
- http://www2.warwick.ac.uk/fac/soc/economics/research/phds/n.powdthavee/friend_happiness2005.pdf
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