This might sound fluffier than a GDP-equivalent measure. Yet even the hardest-nosed economist would recognise the existence of those private benefits. Why else would anyone volunteer in the first place! Volunteering is a prime example of revealed preference theory in practice. Surveys of individuals overwhelmingly support this conjecture. The 2006/07 Helping Out survey of volunteers found a range of benefits including enjoyment, satisfaction and achievement, meeting people and making friends, broadening life experience, boosting confidence, reducing stress, improving physical health and learning new skills (Figure 11). The balance of benefits differs across individuals. For example, younger people are most likely to highlight the importance of acquiring new skills and enhancing employment prospects, while older volunteers see the benefits from increased social interaction and improved health. But enjoyment and satisfaction rank high across all volunteer types. This survey evidence is consistent with PBE’s experience. Our economist volunteers are often young. PBE offers the chance to apply existing skills to different sets of problem in very different environments. I think without exception, PBE volunteers have found projects enjoyable and satisfying – and, especially among government economists, liberating too. Digging a little deeper, these self-reported benefits appear to fall roughly into three categories: enhanced well-being, health benefits and increased skills and employability. It is worth considering the evidence on each in turn. (a)  Enhanced well-being  There are various ways of assessing the impact of volunteering on individual well-being. These include “stated preference” surveys, where people are asked directly about how factors affect their well-being.
10  Guild et al (2014). 4  BIS central bankers’ speeches  •  The private value of volunteering activities, in particular the benefits felt by volunteers themselves; and  •  The social value of volunteering activities, as societal gains may be a multiple of economic and private benefits. I want to build up a quantitative picture of these various layers. They take us from a conventional, GDP-centric measure of economic value through to a more fashionable, wellbeing-centric measure of social welfare. In other words, this approach combines elements of both the old and the new when determining the value of volunteering. Before diving into methodology, let me just highlight a few general caveats: •  First, these value layers – economic, private and social – may not be entirely distinct. For example, the private benefits from volunteering may be the very reason people volunteer in the first place and create economic value. So we should hesitate before simply adding these benefits together. I will try to resist doing so, but will probably fail. •  Second, value measurement becomes harder the further out you go from the centre of the onion. We can make reasonably informed guesses about the economic value of volunteering, by adapting national income accounting techniques. And we can construct some reasonable proxies for private benefits from various surveys. But we have only piecemeal evidence on measuring the social value of volunteering. This, in short, is a fledgling science.