Do Siblings Make Us Happy?
利用中国独生子女政策前城市居民的兄弟姐妹随机性别分配，发现多一个兄弟能显著提升个人幸福感，尤其对低收入和不稳定收入群体效果更强。
This paper examines the sibling effect on individuals’ happiness. To identify the effect, we explore random gender assignment of siblings, conditional on the number of siblings, among urban residents born before the One Child Policy (1979) in China. We find that having more brothers significantly increases individuals’ happiness. Specifically, having one more brother rather than one sister increases one’s self-reported happiness by 0.038 on a 1- to 5-point scale. The brothers effect is particularly significant among low-income and unstable-income individuals. These results are consistent with findings in early literature, suggesting that brothers provide each other with financial support in case of need.