At a very different level of analysis – from brain to nation – Meier and Stutzer (2008) demonstrated that volunteering increases life satisfaction, through use of the German Socioeconomic Panel, a longitudinal study of German households. Consistent with other correlational studies of volunteering and well-being, they found that higher levels of volunteer work were associated with higher levels of overall life satisfaction. This study, however, is unique in that it examines the relationship between happiness and volunteer work around the collapse of the German Democratic Republic, providing a quasi-experimental design