Income and Output: Their Relation to Happiness: Difference between revisions
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<big>What is happiness?</big> | <big>What is happiness?</big> | ||
"By happiness I mean feeling good – enjoying life and feeling it is wonderful. And by unhappiness I mean feeling bad and wishing things were different. There are countless sources of happiness, and countless sources of pain and misery. But all our experience has in it a dimension which corresponds to how good or bad we feel. In fact most people find it easy to say how good they are feeling. A standard question is “Taken all together, how would you say things are these days: would you say you are very happy, pretty happy or not too happy?” Such a question gets 99% response rates – much higher than the average response rates in questionnaires." | "By happiness I mean feeling good – enjoying life and feeling it is wonderful. And by unhappiness I mean feeling bad and wishing things were different. There are countless sources of happiness, and countless sources of pain and misery. But all our experience has in it a dimension which corresponds to how good or bad we feel. In fact most people find it easy to say how good they are feeling. A standard question is “Taken all together, how would you say things are these days: would you say you are very happy, pretty happy or not too happy?” Such a question gets 99% response rates – much higher than the average response rates in questionnaires." -Richard Layard | ||
== Income and Happiness == | == Income and Happiness == | ||
Revision as of 23:40, 10 April 2006
Introduction
All people have experienced various emotions such as anger, saddness, and happiness. In general it is the consenus that the majority of people would like to exprience greater happiness throughout their lives. This raises the question of how can this be done. Recently, Economists have been researching links of GNP (wealth of certain nations) and income to how it effects a citizens happiness. The main questions we will be trying to answer today are: Does greater wealth mean greater happiness? & Why at any point in time people with higher incomes are happier than low income citizens, but over a life cycle as income rises happiness stays relatively constant? These questions will be answered following the work of various economists whose ideas lie on both sides of the argument.
What is happiness?
"By happiness I mean feeling good – enjoying life and feeling it is wonderful. And by unhappiness I mean feeling bad and wishing things were different. There are countless sources of happiness, and countless sources of pain and misery. But all our experience has in it a dimension which corresponds to how good or bad we feel. In fact most people find it easy to say how good they are feeling. A standard question is “Taken all together, how would you say things are these days: would you say you are very happy, pretty happy or not too happy?” Such a question gets 99% response rates – much higher than the average response rates in questionnaires." -Richard Layard
Income and Happiness
Life is a progress from want to want, not from enjoyment to enjoyment
Samuel Jackson, 1776
Income and Happiness: A Unique Paradox
"Researchers say I'm not happier for
being richer but do you know how
much researchers make?
