Does Economic Growth Improve the Human Lot? Some Empirical Evidence

Details

Photo

—

Name

—

Authors

Richard A. Easterlin

Year

1974

Field

Happiness economics

One big idea

Within a country at a point in time, richer people are happier, but over long stretches, rising average income doesn’t always boost average happiness.

My take

The OG Easterlin paradox. Makes GDP graphs look a lot less like a scoreboard and more like just one stat on the box score.