Well-Being and Trust in the Workplace

27 Pages Posted: 29 Dec 2008 Last revised: 13 Nov 2022

See all articles by John F. Helliwell

John F. Helliwell

University of British Columbia (UBC) - Department of Economics; National Bureau of Economic Research (NBER)

Haifang Huang

University of Alberta - Department of Economics

Date Written: December 2008

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.

Suggested Citation

Helliwell, John F. and Huang, Haifang, Well-Being and Trust in the Workplace (December 2008). NBER Working Paper No. w14589, Available at SSRN: https://ssrn.com/abstract=1320835

John F. Helliwell (Contact Author)

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Haifang Huang

University of Alberta - Department of Economics ( email )

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