Maybe money does buy happiness, after all—especially if you can afford more of it than your pals.
That’s according to the findings of a recent working paper distributed by the National Bureau of Economic Research. The paper used a survey of Dutch households to determine whether believing you’re in better financial standing than your peers can impact your beliefs and behavior.
The most striking finding? Believing you earn more than your peers—whom researchers defined as people of similar age, education, and marital and homeownership status—actually makes you happier.
That impact was evident regardless of actual income, researchers said. In other words, it didn’t matter how much money respondents actually made, only how it compared with others’ earnings. One of the lead authors of the study said, “When you realize your [relative] position is good, then you’re more happy, It’s not about the absolute number.”
