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`돈으로 사랑을 살 수 없 지만 행복을 얻을 수는 있다?`
주석: 작년에 미국 펜실베이니아대학교 와튼스쿨(경영대학원) 베시 스티븐슨과 저스틴 울퍼스 등 경제과 교수들이 발표한 연구 내용을 아래와 같이 요약해 소개함.
흔히 돈만으로는 사랑을 얻을 수 없다는 얘기가 정설이 되고 있 지만,행복은 예외라는 연구 결과가 나와 관심을 모으고 있다.
미국 펜실베이니아대학교 와튼스쿨(경영대학원) 연구진은 잘사는 나라가 못사는 나라보다 행복하며, 국가가 더 부유해 질 수록 국민도 행복하다는 연구결과를 발표했다.
이는 국내총생산(GDP)이 높다고 해서 반드시 국민이 행복하다고 볼 수 없다는 이른 바 `이스털린의 역설`을 뒤집은 것이다.
`이스털린의 역설`은 1974년 논문을 통해 이러한 현상을 알린 경제학자 '리처드 이스털린'의 이름에서 따온 것이다.
베시 스티븐슨과 저스틴 울퍼스 등 와튼스쿨 경제학과 교수들이 이번 연구를 위해 전 세계 132개국에서 과거 50년간의 자료를 토대로 분석작업을 펼쳤으며,국가가 잘살수록 국민 역시 행복해 진다는 점을 확인했다고 전했다.
`이스털린의 역설` 때문에 일부 국가들은 GDP를 늘리는 것보다는 국민의 복지후생에 더 신경을 써 왔다며,와튼스쿨의 이번 연구결과가 기존 학설을 송두리째 바꾸는 계기를 마련하게 됐다고 전했다.
연구논문 내용 아래 소개:
Title:'Maybe money can buy happiness after all'
By David Leonhardt
Published: Wednesday, April 16, 2008
In the aftermath of World War II, the Japanese economy went through one of the greatest booms the world has ever known. From 1950 to 1970, the Japanese per-person economic output grew more than sevenfold. Japan, in just a few decades, remade itself from a war-torn country into one of the richest nations on earth.
Yet, strangely, Japanese citizens didn't seem to become any more satisfied with their lives. According to one poll, the percentage of people who gave the most positive possible answer about their life satisfaction actually fell from the late 1950s to the early '70s. They were richer but apparently no happier.
This contrast became the most famous example of a theory known as the Easterlin paradox. In 1974, an economist at the University of Pennsylvania named Richard Easterlin published a study in which he argued that economic growth didn't necessarily lead to more satisfaction.
People in poor countries, not surprisingly, did become happier once they could afford basic necessities. But beyond that, further gains simply seemed to reset the bar. To put it in current terms, owning an iPod doesn't make you happier, because you then want an iPod Touch.
Relative income - how much you make compared with others around you - mattered far more than absolute income, Easterlin wrote.
The paradox quickly became a social science classic, cited in academic journals and the popular media. It tapped into a near-spiritual human instinct to believe that money can't buy happiness. As a 2006 headline in The Financial Times said, "The Hippies Were Right All Along About Happiness."
But now the Easterlin paradox is under attack.
Last week, at the Brookings Institution in Washington, two economists - from the University of Pennsylvania, as it happens - presented a rebuttal of the paradox. It has quickly captured the attention of top economists around the world. It has also led to a spirited response from Easterlin.
The two economists, Betsey Stevenson and Justin Wolfers, argue that money tends to bring happiness, even if it doesn't guarantee it. They point out that in the 34 years since Easterlin published his paper, an explosion of public opinion surveys has allowed for a better look at the question. "The central message," Stevenson said, "is that income does matter."
To see what they mean, take a look at the chart that accompanies this column. It's based on Gallup polls done around the world, and it clearly shows that life satisfaction is highest in the richest countries. The residents of these countries seem to understand that they have it pretty good, whether or not they own an iPod Touch.
If anything, Stevenson and Wolfers say, absolute income seems to matter more than relative income. In the United States, about 90 percent of people in households making at least $250,000 a year called themselves "very happy" in a recent Gallup Poll. In households with incomes of less than $30,000, only 42 percent of people gave that answer. But the international polling data suggest that the under-$30,000 crowd might not be happier if they lived in a poorer country.
Even the Japanese anomaly isn't quite what it first seems to be. Stevenson and Wolfers dug into those old government surveys and discovered that the question had changed over the years.
In the late 1950s and early '60s, the most positive answer the pollsters offered was, "Although I am not innumerably satisfied, I am generally satisfied with life now." (Can you imagine an American poll offering that option?) But in 1964, the most positive answer became simply, "Completely satisfied."
It is no wonder, then, that the percentage of people giving this answer fell. When you look only at the years in which the question remained the same, the share of people calling themselves "satisfied" or "completely satisfied" did rise.
To put the new research into context, I called Daniel Kahneman, a Princeton psychologist who shared the 2002 Nobel Prize in economics. He has spent his career skewering economists for their belief that money is everything and has himself written about the "aspiration treadmill" at the heart of the Easterlin paradox.
Yet Kahneman said he found the Stevenson-Wolfers paper to be "quite compelling." He added, "There is just a vast amount of accumulating evidence that the Easterlin paradox may not exist."
I then called Easterlin, who is now at the University of Southern California and who had received a copy of the paper from Stevenson and Wolfers. He agreed that people in richer countries are more satisfied. But he is skeptical that their wealth is causing their satisfaction. The results could instead reflect cultural differences in how people respond to poll questions, he said.
He would be more persuaded, he continued, if satisfaction had clearly risen in individual countries as they grew richer. In some, it has. But in others - notably the United States and China - it has not.
"Everybody wants to show the Easterlin paradox doesn't hold up," he told me. "And I'm perfectly willing to believe it doesn't hold up. But I'd like to see an informed analysis that shows that."
He said he liked Stevenson and Wolfers personally, but he thought they had put out "a very rough draft without sufficient evidence."
They, in turn, acknowledge that the data on individual countries over time are messy. But they note that satisfaction has risen in 7 of the 10 European countries for which there is polling back to 1970. It has also risen in Japan. And a big reason it may not have risen in the United States is that the hourly pay of most workers has not grown much recently.
"The time-series evidence is fragile," Wolfers said. "But it's more consistent with our story than his."
So where does all this leave us?
Economic growth, by itself, certainly isn't enough to guarantee people's well-being - which is Easterlin's great contribution to economics. In the United States, for instance, some big health care problems, like poor basic treatment of heart disease, don't stem from a lack of sufficient resources. Recent research has also found that some of the things that make people happiest - short commutes, time spent with friends - have little to do with higher incomes.
But it would be a mistake to take this argument too far. The fact remains that economic growth doesn't just make countries richer in superficially materialistic ways.
Economic growth can also pay for investments in scientific research that lead to longer, healthier lives. It can allow people to afford trips to see relatives they haven't seen in years or places they have never been. When you're richer, you can decide to work less - and spend more time with your friends.
Affluence is a pretty good deal. Judging from that chart, the people of the world seem to agree. At a time when the American economy seems to have fallen into recession and most families' incomes have been stagnant for almost a decade, it's good to be reminded of why we should care.
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