Extensive analysis of 152 countries uncovers societal determinants of happiness

Even if you don’t regard material wealth as central to human well-being, economic growth brings many other values, including, for instance, much greater access to the arts and education. Economic growth also gives individuals greater autonomy and minimizes the chance that their destiny will be determined by the time and place in which they were bor

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even if we accept the “flatline” empirical result on happiness and wealth, these self-reported happiness questionnaires are given to individuals in normal life circumstances. The answers will not pick up the ability of wealthier economies to postpone or mitigate extreme tragedies. For instance, happiness measures cannot pick up the benefits of grea

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Until recently, the conventional wisdom was that there was no extra benefit after a certain point—$70,000 being the magic number most often bandied about. Now we have a ton more research, spanning hundreds of thousands of people across more than 140 countries, this turns out to be wrong. In fact, if you chart a graph of income and happiness, you fi

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Plusieurs études75 ont montré que la consommation expliquait à elle seule très peu de différences de bonheur entre individus (moins de 5 %). Dès les années 1970, l’économiste américain Richard Easterlin76 avait en effet démontré combien le bonheur n’était pas corrélé à la croissance du produit intérieur brut (PIB). À partir d’enquêtes sur le lien e

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We’ve all heard the saying, “Money doesn’t buy happiness,” and, empirically, it’s true. Research shows that money protects against sadness but doesn’t buy joy.29 Once we make enough money to pay our bills, save for the future, and have at least some fun on the weekend, making more does little for our happiness. In data from 1.7 million people in 16

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