Happy to Help: The Welfare Effects of a Nationwide Micro-Volunteering Programme

There is a strong suggestion from the existing literature that volunteering improves wellbeing of those who give up their time to help others, but much it correlational and not causal. In this paper, we estimate benefits for England's National Health Service (NHS) Volunteer Responders programme, which was set in response Covid-19 pandemic. Using sample over 9,000 volunteers, exploit oversubscription programme random assignment tasks causal returns, across multiple counterfactuals. We find active volunteers report significantly higher life satisfaction, feelings worthwhileness, social connectedness, belonging local communities. A welfare analysis shows were at least 140 times greater than its costs. Our findings advance our understanding ways pro-social behaviours can improve personal as well welfare.