Working Paper: NBER ID: w14589
Authors: John F. Helliwell; Haifang Huang
Abstract: This paper summarizes and extends our recent work using life satisfaction regressions to estimate the relative values of financial and non-financial job characteristics. The well-being results show strikingly large values for non-financial job characteristics, especially workplace trust and other measures of the quality of social capital in workplaces. For example, an increase of trust in management that is about one tenth of the scale is equivalent to more than 30% increase in monetary income. We find that these values differ significantly by gender and by union status. We consider the reasons for such large values, and explore their implications for employers, employees, and policy-makers.
Keywords: wellbeing; trust; workplace; life satisfaction; social capital
JEL Codes: I31; J16; J31; J51
Edges that are evidenced by causal inference methods are in orange, and the rest are in light blue.
| Cause | Effect |
|---|---|
| Union status (J51) | Trust in management (M54) |
| Trust in management (M54) | Life satisfaction (for union workers) (J59) |
| Trust in management (M54) | Life satisfaction (for nonunion workers) (J59) |
| Gender differences (J16) | Trust in management (M54) |
| Trust in management (M54) | Life satisfaction (I31) |