Workplace environmental conditions and life satisfaction in Spain

- Expands research on life satisfaction and environment by adding workplace conditions
- High noise levels and poor air quality at the workplace diminish life satisfaction.
- This result holds after potential endogeneity is dealt with in a variety of ways.
- Provides monetary values of environmental goods by using life satisfaction approach

This paper expands the research on subjective well-being and outdoor environmental conditions by considering environmental conditions indoors. Specifically, we examine the impact on life satisfaction of self-perceived levels of air and noise pollution in the workplace. We provide a monetary valuation of these environmental conditions, using the life-satisfaction approach. Our results demonstrate that poor air quality and high noise levels in the workplace markedly diminish life satisfaction. This holds even after we control for potential endogeneity arising from simultaneity of self-perceived workplace environmental variables and life satisfaction, by employing an instrumental variable strategy.