We establish a clear positive link between average levels of subjective well-being and GDP per capita across countries, and find no evidence of a satiation point beyond which wealthier countries have no further increases in subjective well-being. We show that the estimated relationship is similar to the relationship between subject well-being and income observed within countries. Those enjoying materially better circumstances also enjoy greater subjective well-being and ongoing rises in living standards have delivered higher subjective well-being. Betsey Stevenson and Justin Wolfers (source)
This study, based on two cross-country happiness surveys (one by Pew and another by Gallup in which people report their own levels of happiness), found that richer countries are happier than poorer ones, and that this is reflected internally in countries (rich people are happier than poor people). No surprise perhaps, but an additional reason to fight poverty, on top of the reasons linked to under-education, ill-health, lack of political representation etc.
These data are confirmed by another study based on the Penn World Tables (for cross country analysis) and the General Social Survey (for U.S. data):
(source)
(source)
On the other hand, there is this:
There is no significant relationship between the improvement in happiness and the long term rate of growth of GDP per capita. This is true for three groups of countries analyzed separately − 17 developed, 9 developing, and 11 transition − and also for the 37 countries taken together. Time series studies reporting a positive relationship confuse a short-term positive association between the growth of happiness and income, arising from fluctuations in macroeconomic conditions, with the long-term relationship, which is nil. (source)
And there’s this survey showing that countries which report themselves as being the happiest tend to be poor and middle-income countries, while the gloomiest are rich countries:
(source)
Some argue that higher income is positively associated with happiness and life satisfaction but that the association is curvilinear: more income means more happiness, but less so at high levels of income than at low levels. One reason is the declining marginal utility of wealth. However, I’ve yet to find data supporting this view.
