Tasting freedom: Happiness, religion and economictransition

Economic transition lowered happiness on average, but did not affect allequally. This paper uses Hungarian survey data to study the impact ofreligion and economic transition on happiness. Religious involvementcontributes positively to individuals’ self-reported well-being.Controlling for personal characteristics of the respondents, money is aless important source of happiness for the religious. The impact ofeconomic transition has varied greatly across different groups. The mainwinners from increasing economic freedom were the entrepreneurs. Thereligious were little affected by the changes. This implies that greaterideological freedom, measured by a greater social role of churches, maynot influence happiness per se.[...]