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.

金钱也许无法为你买来爱情，但或许能为你买来幸福。两位美国经济学家的研究显示，较富裕国家的人比较贫穷的国家更幸福，而随着国家富裕程度的提高，国民的幸福程度也会增加。

过去30年的传统观点认为，更高的国内生产总值(GDP)通常不会转化为更强的整体幸福感。

这种观点被称作伊斯特林悖论(Easterlin Paradox)，是经济学家理查德•伊斯特林(R.Easterlin)在1974年的一篇论文中发现的。一些人士为此呼吁，各国政府应改变对提升GDP的关注。

今年初，法国总统尼古拉•萨科奇(Nicolas Sarkozy)宣布，将努力寻找一项新的GDP衡量指标，以便更好地反映生活质量。

但宾夕法尼亚大学(University of Pennsylvania)沃顿商学院(Wharton business school)的经济学家贝齐•史蒂文森(Betsey Stevenson)和贾斯廷•沃尔弗斯(Justin Wolfers)发表的一篇论文认为，伊斯特林悖论并不成立。

沃尔弗斯表示，他们的不同结论部分来自统计数据的改善——涵盖了更多国家，既有富国，也有穷国；以及过去30年进行了更多的幸福调查。

下周召开的布鲁金斯学会(Brookings Institution)智库春季会议将讨论这两位经济学家的论文。

读过这篇论文的伊斯特林表示，他的悖论依然成立。他称赞了两位年轻批评者的“严肃研究”，但他表示，他们需要更多地关注特定国家的幸福，而非“将所有这些国家拼凑到一起”。

芝加哥大学诺贝尔奖得主加里•贝克尔(Gary Becker)将在下周的会议上发表对以上发现的看法。

贝克尔表示：“我认为，如果发现收入只对那些极端贫困的人才重要，一旦基本需求得到满足，收入就不再重要了，许多人会从政治上感到欣慰。”

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