Does Social Trust Increase Individual Happiness in Japan?

Document Type

Article

Publication Date

12-1-2011

Department

School of Business

Abstract

Economists are mainly interested in trust as being growth enhancing, but whether trust is well-being enhancing is underexplored. This paper examines if trust is intrinsically valuable by using individual happiness data from Japan. I attempt to mitigate the problem of non-random selection of residents by restricting the sample to non-movers. I also address reverse causality by instrumenting trust with residential stability, as trust should be higher for a more stable community. I find that trust has positive and significant effects on individual happiness. The instrumental variables approach suggests that social trust has a causal effect on individual happiness. © 2011 Japanese Economic Association.

DOI

10.1111/j.1468-5876.2011.00533.x

First Page

444

Last Page

459

Volume

62

Issue

4

ISSN

13524739

Comments

At the time of publication, Masanori Kuroki was affiliated with University of California, Riverside.

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