Money might not buy you love, but it might be able to buy you happiness. Research by two US economists suggests that richer countries are happier than poorer ones and that as countries get richer their inhabitants become happier.

    Conventional wisdom of the past three decades held that higher national gross domestic product often did not translate into a greater overall sense of wellbeing.

    This view, known as the Easterlin Paradox after a 1974 paper by economist Richard Easterlin, inspired some calls for governments to shift their focus away from increasing GDP.

    At the beginning of this year, French president Nicolas Sarkozy announced an effort to find a new measure for GDP that took a greater account of quality of life.

    But a paper by Betsey Stevenson and Justin Wolfers, economists at the Wharton business school at the University of Pennsylvania, argues that the Easterlin Paradox is not true.

    Prof Wolfers said their dissenting conclusion partly came from improved statistics covering more countries - poor as well as rich - and a greater number of happiness surveys conducted over the past three decades.

    The paper will be discussed next week at the Brookings Institution think-tank spring conference.

    Prof Easterlin, who has seen the paper, said his paradox still stood. He commended his younger critics' "serious research" but they needed to focus more on happiness in specific countries, rather than "throwing all of these countries together", he said.

    Prof Gary Becker, a University of Chicago Nobel prize winner, will comment on the finding at next week's conference.

    "I think a lot of people found it politically comforting to find that income only mattered for the very poor and once we satisfied our basic needs it didn't matter," Prof Wolfers said.

    金錢也許無法為你買來愛情，但或許能為你買來幸福。兩位美國經濟學家的研究顯示，較富裕國家的人比較貧窮的國家更幸福，而隨著國家富裕程度的提高，國民的幸福程度也會增加。

    過去30年的傳統觀點認為，更高的國內生產總值(GDP)通常不會轉化為更強的整體幸福感。

    這種觀點被稱作伊斯特林悖論(Easterlin Paradox)，是經濟學家理查德•伊斯特林(R.Easterlin)在1974年的一篇論文中發現的。一些人士為此呼吁，各國政府應改變對提升GDP的關注。

    今年初，法國總統尼古拉•薩科奇(Nicolas Sarkozy)宣布，將努力尋找一項新的GDP衡量指標，以便更好地反映生活質量。

    但賓夕法尼亞大學(University of Pennsylvania)沃頓商學院(Wharton business school)的經濟學家貝齊•史蒂文森(Betsey Stevenson)和賈斯廷•沃爾弗斯(Justin Wolfers)發表的一篇論文認為，伊斯特林悖論并不成立。

    沃爾弗斯表示，他們的不同結論部分來自統計數據的改善——涵蓋了更多國家，既有富國，也有窮國；以及過去30年進行了更多的幸福調查。

    下周召開的布魯金斯學會(Brookings Institution)智庫春季會議將討論這兩位經濟學家的論文。

    讀過這篇論文的伊斯特林表示，他的悖論依然成立。他稱贊了兩位年輕批評者的“嚴肅研究”，但他表示，他們需要更多地關注特定國家的幸福，而非“將所有這些國家拼湊到一起”。

    芝加哥大學諾貝爾獎得主加里•貝克爾(Gary Becker)將在下周的會議上發表對以上發現的看法。

    貝克爾表示：“我認為，如果發現收入只對那些極端貧困的人才重要，一旦基本需求得到滿足，收入就不再重要了，許多人會從政治上感到欣慰。”