Watching alone: Relational goods, television and happiness

This paper investigates the role of relational goods for subjective well-being. Using a large sample of individuals from the World Values Survey, we find that relational goods have a significant effect on life satisfaction, while television viewing plays a key role in crowding-out relationality. Bot...

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Bibliographic Details
Published inJournal of economic behavior & organization Vol. 65; no. 3; pp. 506 - 528
Main Authors Bruni, Luigino, Stanca, Luca
Format Journal Article
LanguageEnglish
Published Amsterdam Elsevier B.V 01.03.2008
Elsevier
Elsevier Sequoia S.A
SeriesJournal of Economic Behavior & Organization
Subjects
Consumption
Economic theory
Game theory
Happiness
Life satisfaction
Relational goods
Studies
Subjective well-being
Subjectivity
Television
Television viewing
TV consumption
Well-being
Subjective well-being
A12
D12
TV consumption
I31
Relational goods
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Summary:This paper investigates the role of relational goods for subjective well-being. Using a large sample of individuals from the World Values Survey, we find that relational goods have a significant effect on life satisfaction, while television viewing plays a key role in crowding-out relationality. Both results are robust to the use of alternative indicators of relationality and to instrumental variable estimation to deal with possible simultaneity. The findings suggest that the relational treadmill can provide an additional explanation of the income–happiness paradox: the effect of higher income on happiness is offset by lower consumption of relational goods, with television playing a significant role in explaining underconsumption of relationality.
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ISSN:0167-2681
1879-1751
DOI:10.1016/j.jebo.2005.12.005