Social science has long known of the Easterlin paradox, the finding that people do not grow happier as they grow richer. Now, however, it's beginning to look as if the Easterlin paradox was wrong, and money does, in fact, buy happiness, or at least something closely approximating it. If you look at this scatterplot showing the correlation between a country's wealth and their level of happiness, you'll see that it does appear to exist, even if it's relatively weak. Which is as you'd expect. Money often means health, and self-determination, and sexual and political freedoms, and Nintendo Wiis. It would be odd if development and all that it entailed didn't make people a bit happier. On the other hand, folk in Venezuela, Costa Rica, and Saudi Arabia are all happier than we are, so money ain't everything.
