The Easterlin Paradox
Richer people are happier than poorer people. Yet a whole country getting richer does not seem to get happier.
197423 min read
American economic history and demography
Richard Easterlin
1926
American economist at the University of Southern California, generally regarded as the founder of the economics of happiness. His 1974 chapter "Does Economic Growth Improve the Human Lot?" set out the tension between the cross-sectional and time-series relationships between income and reported wellbeing, and he has defended and refined the claim for fifty years. He is also known for the Easterlin hypothesis linking cohort size to fertility and relative economic fortune.