Higher income seems to improve happiness even if the amount of earnings exceeds a certain level, National Bureau of Economic Research found.

The NBER conducted research on the top 25 countries with the highest population in the world to analyze the relationship between income and happiness, and concluded that people’s happiness is proportional to their family income.

The degree of happiness, however, was found to be different depending on the country.

Among families from the top 25 countries with a yearly income of about 16,000 U.S. dollars, Korean households ranked 24th in happiness measurements.

The research contradicts the previous claims made by a number of scholars including economist Bernd Schmitt of Columbia Business School that money cannot bring happiness anymore when a significant amount of personal time is lost in making earnings.

“The report says you can never have too much money and concludes that people are always short of money,” finance analyst Kwak Hyun-soo was quoted as saying in an interview with local media.

The research was published online last month in the NBER Working Paper Series.


By Park Sui, Intern reporter
(suipark@heraldcorp.com)