The Relation of Happiness and Social Capital. Analysis based on the World Value Survey

Essay from the year 2013 in the subject Business economics - Offline Marketing and Online Marketing, grade: 1.33, Jacobs University Bremen gGmbH, language: English, abstract: This paper has been written as an essay for an undergraduate course and is six pagers long.

This essay will examine the relation between social capital and happiness. So far, much research has been conducted in the field of social capital in order to test and define its far reaching influence. Social capital has not only received tremendous attention from the social scientists, but also from economists. Research has focused on the implications of social capital and the political system and has examined the relation of social capital and growth. So far, however, little research has been conducted to link social capital and happiness. Both aspects are intrinsic to human action and are essential for understanding human development and behavior. Hence, the research question of this paper is: Is there a relation between social capital and happiness? If yes, what are possible policy implications?

To answer the posed research question this paper will first give a short literature review of the terms social capital and happiness and formulate a research hypothesis. Second, this paper will identify and analyze data from the fifth wave of the World Value Survey to assess the relation between social capital and happiness. Finally, the findings will be summarized and policy implications developed.

This paper has been written as an essay for an undergraduate course and is six pagers long.