經濟學告訴你：關於幸福的11件事

Money can buy happiness, but up to what point? And does working more make us miserable? And will you be happier if you start your own company? Here's what the research tells us...
金錢可以買到幸福，但能買到多少幸福呢？另外，工作越多會讓我們痛苦嗎？如果經營自己的公司會更幸福嗎？以下是研究告訴我們的結果：

1) Generally speaking, richer countries are happier countries. But since many of these rich countries share other traits -- they're mostly democracies with strong property rights traditions, for example -- some studies suggest that it's our institutions that are making us happy, not just the wealth.
通常說來，富有的國家幸福指數更高一些。然而，許多這些富有的國傢俱有其他一些特性，比方說，這些國家大多比較民主，具有強大的財產權的慣例。因此一些研究顯示，是體制使人們幸福，而不僅僅是財富。

2) Generally speaking, richer people are happier people. But young people and the elderly appear less influenced by having more money.
通常說來，富有的人幸福指數更高一些。然而，年輕人和老年人似乎受金錢的影響更小一些。

3) But money has diminishing returns -- like just about everything else. Satisfaction rises with income until about $75,000 (or perhaps as high as $120,000). After that, researchers have had trouble proving that more money makes that much of a difference. Other factors -- like marriage quality and health -- become more relatively important than money. It might be the case that richer people use their money to move to richer areas, where they no longer feel rich. Non-economists might chalk this up to the "keeping up with the Jones'" principle.
但是金錢帶來的幸福回報在遞減，就像其他任何事物一樣。滿足感隨着收入的增長而增長，直到年收入達到75,000美元（或者也可能高達120,000美元）。在那之後，研究人員就發現很難證明更多的金錢能起到多大作用了。其他諸如婚姻質量和健康這樣的因素相對來說變得比金錢更加重要。或許事實是這樣：富人利用他們的金錢遷到更富有的地區，而在那裏他們卻不再覺得自己富有了。非經濟學人士大概把這一點歸結爲“互相攀比”原理。

4) The diminishing-returns principle is true for entire countries, too... The "Easterlin Paradox" suggests that once a developed country passes a threshold average income, more growth doesn't increase average reported happiness.
滿足感遞減的原理也適用於所有國家……“伊斯特林矛盾”表示，一旦一個發達國家超過了設定的平均收入水平，那麼更多的收入增長並不會增加平均的幸福指數。

5) Income inequality reduces well-being, and higher public spending increases well-being. These conclusions have been reached many times ... and called into question many times. Most interestingly, "perceived social mobility" might mitigate the effects of income inequality. If people think they can move up the income ladder, they're willing to tolerate a larger equality gap.
收入不均會降低幸福感，並且更高的公共開支會增加幸福指數。這個論斷已經被提及多次……而且曾多次遭到懷疑。更有趣的是，“想象中的社會流動性”或許會緩和收入不均帶來的影響。如果人們認爲他們可以沿着收入的階梯向上攀爬，那麼他們願意忍受更大的收入差距。

6) Unemployment just makes you miserable. Across most surveys, nothing correlates with unhappiness more than unemployment, except perhaps for bad health. This effect is particularly strong among men in Great Britain, Germany, and the U.S. There is an odd silver lining: Being around lots of other unemployed people makes us feel better about not having a job. So high-unemployment regions can possibly "neutralize" the negative effects of unemployment -- but that shouldn't make you feel good about them.
失業只會讓你痛苦。大多數的調查顯示，大概除了身體不健康，失業與不幸福的關係最爲密切。失業帶來的影響在英國、德國和美國男人中最爲強烈。有個奇怪的說法是：如果周圍有很多其他失業的人，那麼我們會對於自己失業這件事感覺沒那麼糟。因此高失業率地區或許能“抵消”失業帶來的負面影響，但是那不應該讓你對於失業這件事感覺良好。

7) Inflation makes you pretty unhappy, too. But its effect is weaker than unemployment. The mixed evidence seems to suggest that a volatile inflation rate decreases well-being, but in countries with generally stable prices, a little inflation has a small effect on happiness.
通貨膨脹也會讓你十分不快。但是這帶來的影響要比失業弱。各種證據似乎表明，不穩定的通貨膨脹率會降低幸福感，但是在通常物價穩定的國家，輕微的通貨膨脹對於幸福的影響很小。

8) Working more hours makes you happier ... until it makes you miserable. As workers move from part-time work to full-time work, they're happier. But as they move from full-time work to Jesus-when-will-this-day-finally-end work, the joy of labor subsides. There seems to be an "inverse U-shaped relationship" between hours worked and self-reported well-being, although the precise figures differ across countries.
工作時間越長讓你越幸福……直到這讓你感到痛苦。當人們從兼職工作轉爲全職工作時，他們會感到更加幸福。但是當他們從全職工作轉爲“上帝啊什麼時候今天的工作才徹底結束”這樣的工作時，勞動的快樂便蕩然無存。雖然在不同國家之間得到的精確調查數據有所不同，但在工作時長和自我的幸福感之間似乎有一個“反U型關係”。

9) Commuters are less happy. The studies here are really interesting. Health scientists say that commuting can make you sick and die -- not conducive to happiness. Daniel Kahneman's research on female happiness found that while commuting, women experienced the "lowest ratio of positive to negative emotions during the day." One study pegged the magic number at 22: If your commute is more than 22 minutes, there is an appreciable decline in reported well-being. Yet another study found that for every 10 minutes of additional commuting, community involvement falls by 10 percent.
每日通勤上下班的人幸福感較低。這裏的研究真的非常有趣。健康學家稱，每天上下班會讓你生病甚至死亡——對幸福無益。丹尼爾-卡尼曼針對女性幸福感的調查發現，當乘公交車上下班時，女性會體會到“一天當中積極情緒轉爲消極情緒的最低點”。一項研究指出了22這個魔幻數字：據報道，如果你的通勤時間超過了22分鐘，那幸福指數會有明顯的下降。而另一項研究發現，乘車上班時間每增加10分鐘，社區參與度就會少10%。

10) Self-employed people are happier. When workers think they're good at their job and that their bosses like them, they're more satisfied. So it makes sense that when they are their own boss, they're happier to work. A famous OECD study found that the self-employed "typically report higher levels of overall job satisfaction than the employed." But another study suggests that only rich self-employed people are happier to be self-employed.
個體經營者更幸福。如果工作者認爲他們很擅長自己的工作並且老闆也喜歡自己，那麼他們就更有滿足感。因此，當他們做自己的老闆時，他們工作起來更幸福，這樣就講得通了。經合組織一項著名的研究發現，個體經營的人比受僱者更明顯地“有更高的工作滿意度”。但另一個研究也表明，只有富有的個體經營者才比受僱者感覺更幸福。

11) Debt sucks. The kind of debt matters. Mortgage debt doesn't correlate much with happiness. Credit card debt does -- in a negative way. Either way, high debt correlates strongly with anxiety and depression.
欠債糟糕。債務的種類很有講究。抵押負債與幸福的關聯並不高。信用卡債務則很相關，而且還是負面影響。不管怎樣，高負債絕對會帶來焦慮和憂愁。