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本帖最后由 满仓 于 2013-1-15 13:02 编辑
【中文标题】金钱的确可以买到幸福
【原文标题】Yes, Money Does Buy Happiness: 6 Lessons from the Newest Research on Income and Well-Being
【登载媒体】大西洋月刊
【原文作者】Derek Thompson
【原文链接】http://www.theatlantic.com/business/archive/2013/01/yes-money-does-buy-happiness-6-lessons-from-the-newest-research-on-income-and-well-being/267016/
长期以来，我们一直相信存在一种“幸福顶点”，在达到这个程度之后，更多的钱也不会带来更大的满足感。或许，我们的想法是错的。
既合情合理又让人觉得具有讽刺意味的是，枯燥的政治经济学似乎有很多有关幸福的意见要表达。
经典的经济学理论中，关于金钱和幸福的关系是这样的。金钱当然可以买到幸福，但是只会买到一定程度的幸福。当基本需求被满足之后，更多的金钱所产生的幸福回报率会逐渐减少（或者根本没有）。或许富人的钱可以让他们的生活上一个台阶，但他们并不感到富有。相对收入——你与朋友之间物质水平的比较——或许比绝对收入——你实际的物质水平——要更重要。很简单。
经济学家称此为“伊斯特林悖论”，你管它叫“相互攀比原理”。
而一篇新出炉的研究报告宣称这完全是胡说，或者借用经济学家的腔调，“基于错误的经验主义结论”。报告认为，有钱人的幸福感就是比较高，即使对金字塔顶端10％的富人来说也是如此。在Daniel W. Sacks、Betsey Stevenson和Justin Wolfers合力撰写的一篇论文《收入与主观幸福感的新事实》中，有6个最有趣的发现。
1，富裕的国家更幸福。下面有一张简单的图表，表达出一个简单的观点。研究人员利用盖洛普全球调查的结果，标识出122个国家对幸福的认知和每个国家人均GDP的数值（根据购买力水平稍作调整），发现其中有很强的关联性。
结果是，幸福感随着收入水平的提高而上升。
2，但并不是每多1美元都能获得相等的幸福感。猛一看，上图的直线具有一些欺骗性。这个图表并不是说，你每多挣1000美元，都能获得相等程度的更多满足感。它们之间是对数关系。也就是说，把你的1000美元翻一倍到2000美元，所获得的幸福感与你把1万美元翻一倍到2万美元所获得的幸福感相同。这些研究结果并不像万有引力定律一样精确，但其含义在于：你的收入从3万美元上升到6万美元，获得了一些幸福感，但是如果再上升3万美元，你不会获得同样的幸福感，而是需要再把收入翻倍，达到12万美元才可以。
3，收入上升，幸福感也上升。第一张图回答了这个问题：收入越高的国家越幸福吗？答案似乎是肯定的。但是另外一个问题呢：同一个国家，幸福感会随着收入的提高而上升吗？答案也是肯定的。下图描述了世界上最大的25个国家幸福感与家庭收入的线性关系。
4，没有所谓的“幸福顶点”（或者说幸福顶点离我们还很遥远）。这些线条告诉我们三件重要的事情。第一，所有线条都呈上升趋势，也就是越有钱，越幸福。第二，线条以大致平行的方式排列。说明不论语言、文化、宗教和种族差异，似乎同等额外收入可以买到同等数量的幸福感。第三，线条没有出现横向走向，也就是没有所谓的“伊斯特林顶点”、没有超级满足点、没有那么一个金钱突然失去购买幸福能力的阶段。
5，欧洲模式：稳定提高的收入带来稳定上升的幸福感。下图似乎有些杂乱，但能够证实一个激动人心的观点。这是从1973就开始在欧洲大陆上进行的欧洲晴雨表调查，在数据最完整的9个国家中，有8个国家的幸福感随着经济增长而上升。除了比利时这个另类。
6，同样例外的美国模式：收入不平衡让幸福感付出代价。从70年代初期到现在，美国的经济规模翻了一倍，但民众自认为幸福程度下降了。怎么回事？
论文的作者对此提出了两个合理的原因。首先，大部分国家的经济增长与幸福度提升有关联，但并不是说GDP全面决定幸福程度。类似单个家庭收入增长的这类社会变革因素，在美国也对幸福感起到同样重要的决定作用。其次，美国是世界上经济最不平衡的国家，翻倍的GDP成果并未在社会各阶层平均分配。作者认为：“欧洲国家经济不平等性的变化程度，只有美国的一半。”
根据现代收入幸福研究领域教父理查德•伊斯特林的理论，有钱总比没钱要好，但是富裕的国家即使变得愈加有钱，幸福感也不会上升，因为幸福感会达到一个极限值。这个理论影响深远。在一个只有相对收入起作用的环境中，追求经济增长，或者想方设法增加低收入人群税后收入水平，就显得不那么重要了。Sacks、Stevenson和Wolfers研究成果彻底推翻了伊斯特林的理论。绝对收入绝对是重要的，选民、经济学家和政策制定者一定要想方设法增加普通家庭的收入。
原文：
For a long time, we knew that there was a happiness plateau, a point where more money basically stopped buying greater satisfaction. Maybe we were wrong.
Fittingly or ironically, the dismal science has a lot to say about happiness.
The classic economic story about money and well-being goes something like this. Money buys happiness, sure, but only up to a point. Once basic needs are taken care of, extra money has diminishing (or non-existent) returns. Perhaps richer people use their money to move to richer areas, where they no longer feel rich. Perhaps relative income -- how much you have compared to your friends -- is matters much more than absolute income -- how much money you have, period.
Economists call it the "Easterlin Paradox." You call it the "Keeping Up With the Jones' Principle."
And a new research paper calls it total bunk. Or, in the economists' parlance, "based on empirical claims which are simply false." People with more money have higher reported well-being, they say, all the way up to the top 10 percent of earners. Here are the 6 most interesting observations from "The New Stylized Facts about Income and Subjective Well-Being," a discussion paper by Daniel W. Sacks, Betsey Stevenson, and Justin Wolfers.
(1) Richer countries are happier. Here's a simple graph to make a simple point. The researchers plotted 122 countries' responses to a Gallup World Poll on well-being against each nation's real GDP per capita (adjusted for purchasing power) and found a strong correlation.
Upshot: Well-being rises with income at all levels of income, across countries.
(2) ... But every next dollar won't buy the same amount of happiness. The straight line can be deceptive at first blush. The graph is *not* telling you that every next $1,000 on your paycheck is worth the same gains in satisfaction. Instead, the relationship is logarithmic. That means doubling your income from $1000 to $2000 raises satisfaction by the same amount as doubling your income from $10,000 to $20,000. Not that these findings are as binding as the law of gravity, but this would suggest that, to equal the happiness boost you felt from getting raise from $30,000 to $60,000, another $30,000 wouldn't do the trick: You would have to double your income again, to $120,000.
(3) Richer countries get happier as they get richer. That first graph answers the question: Do countries with more income report more happiness? The answer seems to be yes. But what about a different question: Do individual countries report more happiness as their incomes rise? Also, yes. The next graph looks the 25 biggest countries in the world and shows the linear relationship between well-being and household income.
(4) There is no "happiness plateau" (or it's much higher than we thought). Those lines tell us three important things. First, the lines go up. More money, more happiness. Second, the lines go up in parallel, more or less. Across language, culture, religion, ethnic background, the same amount of extra money seems to buy the similar amount of extra happiness. Third, the lines go up in parallel and they don't flatten out. There is no "Easterlin plateau", no satiation point, no bright line where money suddenly loses the ability to improve well-being.
(5) Europe's lesson: A steadily rising level of satisfaction from a steadily rising level of income. The graphs below are a bit more pointilist and messy, but they make a similarly compelling point. The Eurobarometer survey, which has measured life satisfaction across the continent since 1973, clearly shows that in eight of the nine countries for which the researchers have the most data, well-being has increased through time with economic growth. Except for Belgium. You're weird, Belgium.
(6) The American exception is also a lesson: Income inequality is a tax on happiness. The U.S economy has doubled in size since the early 1970s. But self-reported well-being has declined. Huh?
The authors make two reasonable excuses. First, economic growth correlates with improved happiness in most countries, but that doesn't mean GDP is the overwhelming determinant of happiness. Social changes, such as the increase in single-family households, could play an equally powerful role in moving self-reported satisfaction in America. Second, it's well known the U.S. is a world leader in economic inequality and that the fruits of a doubling GDP have hardly been shared equally. "In European countries, inequality has increased by half" the amount it has in the U.S., the authors find.
***
According to the modern godfather of income and well-being research, Richard Easterlin, it is better to be rich than poor, but rich countries don't get any happier as they got richer. They hit a happiness ceiling, essentially. This idea matters a great deal, because in a world where only relative income matters, there might be less need to care about growth or pursue policies that maximized lower-income families' post-tax incomes. The work by Sacks, Stevenson, and Wolfers suggests Easterlin was simply wrong. Absolute income matters absolutely, and voters, economists, and policy-makers have everything to gain by putting the spotlight on income gains for the average family.
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