People behave pro-socially in a wide variety of situations that standard economic theory is unable to explain. Social comparison is one explanation for such pro-social behavior: people contributeif others contribute or cooperate as well....

Empirical evidence is provided for the importance of non-reciprocal pro-social behavior of individuals in an anonymous, n-person pure public good setting. A unique panel data set of 136,000 observations is matched with an extensive survey....

This paper intends to provide an evaluation of where the economic research onhappiness stands and in which interesting directions it might develop...