The Guardian:
As the rich get richer everyone else gets less happy
16 February 2016
Despite growing concern over the economic and social implications of the increasing concentration of wealth among a wealthy elite, we continue to know very little about how the growing gap in wealth and income of the top 1% influences the wellbeing of the other 99%. Together with Richard Burkhauser at Cornell University, we decided to find out. We wanted to estimate how the rising income of the 1% relates to average life satisfaction, even where household income and a country's GDP remain constant. We started our research by asking if income inequality at the very top really matters to the life satisfaction of the average person in a country - the results show that there is a correlation between the two.
This article was published by The Guardian on February 16, 2016
Link to article here
See Also
February 18, 2016
LSE Business Review
As the richest get richer, everyone else gets less happy, Jan-Emmanuel De Neve and Nick Powdthavee.
Related publications
'Top Incomes and Human Well-Being Around the World', Richard V. Burkhauser, Jan-Emmanuel De Neve and Nattavudh Powdthavee, Centre for Economic Performance Discussion Paper No.1400, January 2016
Related links
Jan-Emmanuel De Neve webpage
Nick Powdthavee webpage
Wellbeing Programme webpage