TY  - JOUR
AB  - Purpose– Many transactions are partly carried out within social networks and without payment, partly commercially on the market. The paper aims to explore the interdependencies between shrinking cooperation in society and a growing service sector.Design/methodology/approach– The author tries to categorize cooperation and to set it into relation to services carried out against payment. Examples are found where a clear switch from cooperation to the service sector have been taken place.Findings– The paper diagnoses a broad societal switch from socially driven cooperation to the market. Tour reps at holiday clubs, psychologists and nurses for the elderly are all rising professions and are used as cases in point. Utility theory sees such switches as a rise in GDP and therefore as something positive. From a happiness research perspective, however, switching from cooperation to markets will probably lead to declining social capital.Research limitations/implications– The overall impact to societal utility remains unclear.Originality/value– This is an example for a phenomenon where happiness research leads to very different results from welfare economics.
VL  - 35
IS  - 5
SN  - 0306-8293
DO  - 10.1108/03068290810861585
UR  - https://doi.org/10.1108/03068290810861585
AU  - Mann Stefan
PY  - 2008
Y1  - 2008/01/01
TI  - From friendly turns towards trade – on the interplay between cooperation and markets
T2  - International Journal of Social Economics
PB  - Emerald Group Publishing Limited
SP  - 326
EP  - 337
Y2  - 2024/05/14
ER  -