Thursday, March 20, 2008

Happiness, $1

Money can buy happiness, according to a new study. TierneyLab has the results.

Hint: standard economic theory won't tell you this.

3 comments:

Macro Guy said...

Didn't Jesus actually say this a while ago??

cory said...

I heard this yesterday on NPR.

giving money away makes me feel good in one way.

having a large reese's blizzard from dairy queen makes me feel good in a completely different way (and then it makes me feel bad about 20 minutes later.)

Macro Guy said...

I think one of the problems with the conclusion might be habit formation. The first month you send $30 to Africa to feed a child, you feel great. Each successive month, the buzz decreases. I don't think the conclusions are scale invariant.

The bottom line is what we already know: serious charity will ultimately come from self-sacrifice, not self-gratification.