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Did the Decline in Social Capital Decrease American Happiness? A Relational Explanation of the Happiness Paradox
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TL;DR: The authors showed that the inclusion of social capital does improve the account of reported happiness and provided evidence of a decline in social capital indicators for the period 1975-2004, confirming Putnam's claim.
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Abstract: Most popular explanations of the happiness paradox cannot fully account for the lack of growth in US reported well-being during the last thirty years (Blanchflower and Oswald (2004)) In this paper we test an alternative hypothesis, namely that the decline in US social capital is responsible for what is left unexplained by previous research We provide three main findings First, we show that the inclusion of social capital does improve the account of reported happiness Second, we provide evidence of a decline in social capital indicators for the period 1975-2004, confirming Putnam's claim (Putnam (2000)) Finally, we show that failed growth of happiness is largely due to the decline of social capital and, in particular, to the decline of its relational and intrinsically motivated component
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Citations
Bowling alone: The collapse and revival of American community
TL;DR: As an example of how the current "war on terrorism" could generate a durable civic renewal, Putnam points to the burst in civic practices that occurred during and after World War II, which he says "permanently marked" the generation that lived through it and had a "terrific effect on American public life over the last half-century."
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Social Capital and Subjective Wellbeing in Europe: A New Approach on Social Capital
TL;DR: In this paper, a factor analysis is performed to summarize information coming from a large set of variables into different components corresponding to each dimension of social capital (i.e., networks, norms, and trust).
192
Does Relative Income Matter? Are the Critics Right?
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What are we learning from the life satisfaction literature
TL;DR: The recent availability of cross-sectional and longitudinal survey data on life satisfaction in a large number of countries gives us the opportunity to verify empirically what matters for individuals and what economists and policymakers should take into account when trying to promote personal and societal well-being.
References
The Rise and Decline of Nations: Economic Growth, Stagflation, and Social Rigidities
TL;DR: The years since World War II have seen rapid shifts in the relative positions of different countries and regions and leading political economist Mancur Olson offers a new and compelling theory to explain these shifts in fortune and then tests his theory against evidence from many periods of history as discussed by the authors.
2.3K
Social Isolation in America: Changes in Core Discussion Networks over Two Decades
TL;DR: In 2004, the General Social Survey (GSS) collected the first nationally representative data on the confidants with whom Americans discuss important matters as mentioned in this paper, and the authors replicated those questions to assess social change in core network structures.
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The macroeconomics of happiness
Rafael Di Tella,Robert MacCulloch,Andrew J. Oswald +2 more
- 01 Jan 1997
TL;DR: The authors showed that macroeconomic movements have strong effects on the happiness of nations and that recessions create psychic losses that extend beyond the fall in GDP and rise in the number of people unemployed.
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Happiness and economic performance
Andrew J. Oswald
- 01 Jan 1997
TL;DR: This paper examined the question by using information on well-being in Western countries and revealed patterns that are not visible to the anecdotal eye, which suggests that governments ought to be trying to reduce the amount of joblessness in the economy.
Is social capital declining in the united states? a multiple indicator assessment
TL;DR: In this paper, a model of social capital that has explicit links to theories of Social capital was proposed and analyzed over a 20-year period, showing that the results do not consistently support Putnam's claim of a decline in social capital.
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