What Can Happiness Research Tell Us About Altruism? : Evidence from the German Socio-Economic Panel

Arbeitspapier

Much progress has been made in recent years on developing and applying a direct measure of utility using survey questions on subjective well-being. In this paper we explore whether this new type of measurement can be fruitfully applied to the study of interdependent utility in general, and altruism between parents and children in particular. We introduce an appropriate econometric methodology and, using data from the German Socio-Economic Panel for the years 2000-2002, find that the parents? self-reported happiness depends positively, albeit not very strongly, on the happiness of adult children who moved out.

Object Details

• Language: Englisch

References and Relationships

• Bibliographic citation: Series: IZA Discussion Papers ; No. 1487

Classification and Topics

• Classification: Wirtschaft ; Demographic Economics: General ; Single Equation Models; Single Variables: Discrete Regression and Qualitative Choice Models; Discrete Regressors; Proportions; Probabilities ; Altruism; Philanthropy; Intergenerational Transfers
• Subject: utility function ; extended family ; fixed effects ; ordered probit ; Altruismus ; Familie ; Lebensqualität ; Eltern ; Schätzung ; Deutschland ; Lebenszufriedenheit

Contributors, Places and Time

• Event: Geistige Schöpfung
• (who): Schwarze, Johannes ; Winkelmann, Rainer
• Event: Veröffentlichung
• (who): Institute for the Study of Labor (IZA)
• (where): Bonn
• (when): 2005

Further information

• Handle: http://hdl.handle.net/10419/20786
• Last update: 10.03.2025, 11:42 AM CET