Public Goods Provision and Well-Being: Empirical Evidence for the Warm Glow Assumption

AbstractUsing a broad multi-country sample, we find that individuals who contribute to the public good of environmental protection report higher levels of life satisfaction and happiness. We show that this result is robust to the use of an instrumental variables technique and provide several pieces of evidence that this positive relationship between contributions and well-being is due to a warm-glow motive. First, well-being does not increase proportionally with contributions, consistent with the warm-glow model that it is the act of giving that generates utility. Second, individuals who think of themselves as socially responsible derive greater satisfaction from their contribution to environmental protection as would be the case if the contribution reinforces a favorable self image. Interestingly, conforming to a social norm may be a motivation for some individuals, but the presence of this motive depends on individual attitudes towards social responsibility. Among those who express the highest level of social responsibility, conforming to the norm makes them less satisfied with life. However, individuals with a moderate level of social responsibility do report higher levels of happiness when their public goods contributions conform to societal norms.

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Surrounded and threatened: how neighborhood composition reduces ethnic voting through intimidation

Political Science Research and Methods ◽

10.1017/psrm.2021.15 ◽

2021 ◽

pp. 1-14

Author(s):

Ted Enamorado ◽

Svetlana Kosterina

Keyword(s):

Public Goods ◽

Empirical Evidence ◽

Health Survey ◽

The Political ◽

Local Public Goods ◽

Alternative Mechanism ◽

Public Goods Provision ◽

Electoral Campaigns ◽

Geocoded Data ◽

Ethnic Geography

Abstract Ethnic voting is an important phenomenon in the political lives of numerous countries. In the present paper, we propose a theory explaining why ethnic voting is more prevalent in certain localities than in others and provide evidence for it. We argue that local ethnic geography affects ethnic voting by making voters of ethnicity that finds itself in the minority fear intimidation by their ethnic majority neighbors. We provide empirical evidence for our claim using the data from round 4 of the Afrobarometer survey in Ghana to measure the voters’ beliefs that they are likely to face intimidation during electoral campaigns. Using geocoded data from rounds three and four of the Afrobarometer, as well as data from the Ghana Demographic and Health Survey, we find no evidence for local public goods provision as an alternative mechanism.

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