Our all-American belief that money really does buy happiness is roughly correct for about 85 percent of us.
We know this thanks to the latest and perhaps final work of Daniel Kahneman, the Nobel Prize winner who insisted on the value of working with those with whom we disagree.
Professor Kahneman, who died last week at the age of 90, is best known for his pathbreaking explorations of human judgment and decision-making, and of how people deviate from perfect rationality.
Beyond a threshold at or below $90,000, Professor Kahneman and Professor Deaton found, there is no further progress in average happiness as income increases.
Eleven years later, Matthew Killingsworth, a senior fellow at the Wharton School of the University of Pennsylvania, found exactly the opposite: People with higher income reported higher levels of average happiness.
Persons:
Daniel Kahneman, Kahneman, Angus Deaton, Deaton, Matthew Killingsworth
Organizations:
Princeton, Wharton School, University of Pennsylvania