Money Does Buy You Happiness. Maybe.

People have been probably been wondering if money brings happiness ever since Croesus, a king in what is today Turkey, had a mixture of silver and gold pounded into bean-shaped ingots 4,000 years ago. Only over the past few years has the subject become a scientific hot topic. And the results, as far as I can tell, are... (drum roll)... somewhat muddled. One argument that has gained considerable prominence recently is that more money does make you significantly happier if you're living in poverty, barely squeaking by, but additional income past that has negligible happiness benefits. Not so, says a new study (pdf) that tracked ten thousand British people over the course of several years and focused especially on 116 who won big lottery payouts (over 1,000 pounds; mean of 4,300 pounds) during that time. One strength of the study is that it followed the winners themselves for two years ...