Richard Easterlin died in December at the age of 98. He’s been called “the father of happiness economics”, and it’s hard to disagree. Fifty years ago, after struggling to find an economics journal with any interest in the topic, Easterlin published an article titled “Does Economic Growth Improve the Human Lot?” It planted the seeds of what became known as the Easterlin paradox. Within any given society, richer people are substantially more likely to say they’re happy. The paradox says that despite this fact, richer countries are no happier than poor ones. Nor do countries become happier on average as they become richer.

Like many things with the label “paradox”, Easterlin’s is no such thing. It can easily be explained — too easily, in fact, since many different explanations seem reasonable. One was put forward by Easterlin himself in 1974: “the growth process itself engenders ever-growing wants”.

Richard Layard, co-editor of the World Happiness Report, is more specific: in his book Can We Be Happier? (2020), Layard argues that our society functions as a zero-sum game, where we can only win if others lose. That would explain the pattern claimed by the Easterlin hypothesis.