Life satisfaction is often treated as a personal outcome something economics tries to improve. But what if it also shapes how citizens engage with democracy? Using longitudinal data from the German Socio-Economic Panel (SOEP), this study estimates whether individuals who report higher life satisfaction are more politically interested and more likely to participate in local politics and whether this relationship strengthens or weakens with age. The analysis applies OLS regression with interaction effects, and tests whether political interest mediates the path from happiness to participation. The findings are more nuanced than the headline suggests.

What actually drives households to invest in renewable energy their values, or their wallet? This R-based study analyzes survey data from 498 German households to test whether environmental concern, financial motivation, and social justice values predict investment amounts, using OLS regression with fixed effects and ANOVA model comparison.