Psychologists have been busy testing the premise that money can't buy happiness. Nobel prize-winning economist Daniel Kahneman has garnered lots of attention with research that says this largely is true. Beyond about $75,000 in annual income – enough to fund a moderately comfortable lifestyle – more money does not make people much happier, he said.
Not so fast, say two young academics. Elizabeth Dunn, an associate professor of psychology at the University of British Columbia, and Michael Norton, an associate professor of marketing at Harvard Business School, have written a new book called "Happy Money: The Science of Smarter Spending." In the book, they make a persuasive case that money does have the ability to buy happiness, and it's not how much money you have that matters, but how you spend it.
