happiness - Publications - Faculty & Research

January 25, 2021
Blog Post

Lower Income Translates to Fewer Happy Experiences—Here Is How We Can Fix It

By: Jon M. Jachimowicz and Adam Eric Greenberg

Can money actually buy happiness? Research shows that having more money makes people evaluate their lives more favorably (what researchers call “life satisfaction”). Surprising as it may seem, whether money leads to greater life satisfaction because it makes people... View Details

Keywords: Life Satisfaction; Social Justice; Money; Happiness; Satisfaction; Well-being

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December 2010
Article

Happiness Adaptation to Income and to Status in an Individual Panel

By: Rafael Di Tella and Robert MacCulloch

We study adaptation to income and to status using individual panel data on the happiness of 7,812 people living in Germany from 1984 to 2000. Specifically, we estimate a "happiness equation" defined over several lags of income and status and compare the long-run... View Details

Keywords: Wages; Status and Position; Happiness; Income; Change; Germany

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February 2013
Teaching Note

K&N's: Health and Happiness for Pakistan (TN)

By: David E. Bell, Damien P. McLoughlin and Mary Shelman

Keywords: Pakistan; Agribusiness; Agriculture and Agribusiness Industry; Pakistan

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15 Aug 2023
Cold Call Podcast

Ryan Serhant: How to Manage Your Time for Happiness

Keywords: Re: Ashley V. Whillans; Real Estate

August 2009
Case

SK Telecom: Pursuing Happiness through Corporate Social Responsibility

By: Christopher Marquis, Kwang Y. Ryu, Philip H. Mirvis and Bobbi Thomason

Since 2006, SK Telecom has worked to develop strategic corporate social responsibility (CSR) programs that are aligned with its business operations and corporate mission. The case tracks the original assessment process the company went through and successive... View Details

Keywords: Corporate Social Responsibility and Impact; Organizational Change and Adaptation; Organizational Design; Organizational Structure; Corporate Strategy; Telecommunications Industry; South Korea

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Article

Valuing Time Over Money Is Associated with Greater Happiness

By: A.V. Whillans, Aaron C. Weidman and Elizabeth W. Dunn

How do the trade-offs that we make about two of our most valuable resources—time and money—shape happiness? While past research has documented the immediate consequences of thinking about time and money, research has not yet examined whether people’s general... View Details

Keywords: Well-being; Time; Trade-offs; Orientations; Happiness; Money; Satisfaction

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Article

Time Use and Happiness of Millionaires: Evidence from the Netherlands

By: Paul Smeets, A.V. Whillans, Rene Bekkers and Michael I. Norton

How do the very wealthy spend their time, and how does time use relate to well-being? In two studies in the Netherlands, the affluent (N=863, N=690) and the general population (N=1232, N=306) spent time in surprisingly similar ways, such as by spending the same amount... View Details

Keywords: Time And Wellbeing; Millionaires; Social Class; Wealth; Happiness; Demographics; Netherlands

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November 16, 2022
Article

America Is Pursuing Happiness in All the Wrong Places

By: Arthur C. Brooks

The U.S. is undergoing a crisis of our personal and shared sense of meaning as polarization rises and institutions erode. The solution is as simple as it is difficult: Love one another. View Details

Keywords: Happiness; Civil Society or Community; Family and Family Relationships; Government and Politics; United States

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Article

Happiness on Tap: Piped Water Adoption in Urban Morocco

By: Florencia Devoto, Esther Duflo, Pascaline Dupas, William Pariente and Vincent Pons

Connecting private dwellings to the water main is expensive and typically cannot be publicly financed. We show that households' willingness to pay for a private connection is high when it can be purchased on credit, not because a connection improves health but because... View Details

Keywords: Water Supply; Urban Development; Household; Credit; Well-being; Morocco

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2019
Chapter

Happiness and Prosocial Behavior: An Evaluation of the Evidence

By: Lara B. Aknin, Ashley V. Whillans, Michael I. Norton and Elizabeth W. Dunn

Humans are an extremely prosocial species. Compared to most primates, humans provide more assistance to family, friends, and strangers, even when costly. Why do people devote their resources to helping others? In this chapter, we examine whether engaging in prosocial... View Details

Keywords: Volunteering; Charity; Prosocial Behavior; Happiness; Well-being; Behavior

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April 15, 2021
Article

How to Build a Life: How to Buy Happiness

By: Arthur C. Brooks

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December 2011
Exercise

What We Carry: Success, Failure, and Happiness in Family Systems

By: Timothy Butler

The purpose of this exercise is to enable participants to identify essential career and life themes. The core task of the exercise is to extract themes, images, metaphors and "dynamic tensions" from a list of exciting careers that have been selected from a larger... View Details

Keywords: Family and Family Relationships; Success; Failure; Happiness

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03 Oct 2023
Research Event

Build the Life You Want: Arthur Brooks and Oprah Winfrey Share Happiness Tips

View Video “Are you happy?” asks Atlantic editor Jeffrey Goldberg of happiness expert Arthur C. Brooks. “Next question,” Brooks jokes, before answering: “No one is. Happiness is not a destination. It’s a... View Details

Keywords: by HBS Staff

March 2001
Article

Preferences over Inflation and Unemployment: Evidence from Surveys of Happiness

By: Rafael Di Tella, Robert MacCulloch and Andrew Oswald

Keywords: Inflation and Deflation; Job Cuts and Outsourcing; Happiness

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25 Jan 2022
Research & Ideas

More Proof That Money Can Buy Happiness (or a Life with Less Stress)

happiness that money can bring, I think we are missing something,” says Jachimowicz, an assistant professor of business administration in the Organizational Behavior Unit at HBS. “We also need to think about all of the worries that it can... View Details

Keywords: by Michael Blanding