Does money buy happiness

TEN' I'Y YEARS ago in this journal, Richard Easterlin argued that richer societies are no happier than poor ones. However, Easterlin argued, within any one country richer people are happier than poorer people. He explained this anomaly as follows: People judge their economic welfare by that of their neighbors. If only national income rises, an individual's status, vis-a-vis his neighbors, remains unchanged. But since then, new studies have almost completely reversed Easterlin's conclusions. These studies have found that economic