A Nobel-Prize Winning Economist’s Study Says ‘Money Can Buy Happiness’

The age-old question has been ‘can money buy happiness’ and for the most part, everyone has said that no, no it can. Various philosophical posts and more have gone on explaining how money is not the key to happiness.

The concept that happiness comes in things that cannot be bought is a good one sure and also correct to some extent. But in today’s time, there is also the reality that money can buy happiness and now a study seems to be actually saying the same thing.

The study conducted by a Nobel-prize winning economist seems to suggest that happiness can increase with a rise in income and earnings.

What Is This Study?

Apparently, The Washington Post has reported that an increase in earnings and income directly affects happiness leading to a rise in it too. As per reports, the findings are based on a study that was conducted by Nobel Prize-winning economist Daniel Kahneman along with Princeton University’s Matthew Killingsworth.

Kahneman had actually also been involved in an earlier study from 2010 that claimed that money can only give happiness to a particular point which at that time had been said to be about $75,000 in annual earnings.

However, his new study says otherwise and has been just recently published in the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences.

Read More: ResearchED: Young People Are Not Going To Make Money The Way Their Parents Did

The researchers recorded the people’s answers for the study on a smartphone app ranging from “very bad” to “very good” at random points of time and calculated the increase in happiness as their income and yearly earnings also increased.

This new study actually leaves behind the old one stating that people who had a yearly salary of up to $500,000 were generally on the ‘very happy’ scale.

Matthew Killingsworth in a statement said that “Just one of the many determinants of happiness. Money is not the secret to happiness, but it can probably help a bit.”

As per reports this is said to be the ‘happiness plateau’ of money which basically refers to how for people there is a certain amount of money that once reached then they don’t need anymore to be happy. And this study which earlier had set the limit at $75,000 finds that in the last decade the ‘happiness plateau’ has seen a six-times jump to $500,000 in 2021.

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Feature Image designed by Saudamini Seth

Sources: Business Today, Hindustan Times, The Economic Times

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This post is tagged under: Money Buy Happiness, Nobel prize winning economist, economist, Daniel Kahneman, Daniel Kahneman economist, Daniel Kahneman nobel prize, Matthew Killingsworth, Princeton University, University of Pennsylvania, income, income happiness

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