Money can buy you happiness, new study finds

GlobalPost

It never sounded right, anyway, the theory that says money can't buy you happiness.

Now, it seems, the old saying isn't really true if we're to believe a pair of University of Michigan researchers who claim that more money doesn't equal more problems.

“Studies by us and others have pointed to a robust positive relationship between well-being and income across countries and over time,” the authors write in their research, according to the Globe and Mail.

The study appears in the journal American Economic Review, Papers and Proceedings.

What they really went after was the idea that once you reached a certain comfort level, you didn't get happier with each successful stock sale or merger.

That's called the Easterlin Paradox, named after famous economist Richard Easterlin who first coined the theory in the 1970s.

As theories changed and research continued, other academics adjusted the claim by suggesting the paradox emerges after your basic needs are met, the Wall Street Journal reported.

To arrive at their conclustion, Wolfers and Stevenson compiled data from 150 countries through the World Bank and Gallup World Poll, the WSJ said.

They also determined there's no "saturation point," so you keep getting happier the more you earn.

And it holds true for those considered rich or poor.

"While each additional dollar of income yields a greater increment to measured happiness for the poor than for the rich, there is no satiation point," the study says, according to the WSJ.

Now if only someone could determine if money can buy you love, we'd be set.

More from GlobalPost: Attractive men make more, study finds

[View the story "Money CAN buy you happiness?" on Storify]
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