Research Paper

Money and mental wellbeing: a longitudinal study of medium-sized lottery wins

By Jonathan Gardner and Andrew J. Oswald

Publication details

Publication date
Series or book
Warwick Economic Research Papers
Series or chapter number
754
Publisher
University of Warwick: Department of Economics
http://ideas.repec.org/p/wrk/warwec/754.html

Abstract

One of the famous questions in social science is whether money makes people happy. We offer new evidence by using longitudinal data on a random sample of Britons who receive medium-sized lottery wins of between £1000 and £120,000 (that is, up to approximately US$ 200,000). When compared to two control groups - one with no wins and the other with small wins - these individuals go on eventually to exhibit significantly better psychological health. Two years after a lottery win, the average measured improvement in mental wellbeing is 1.4 GHQ points.

Notes

working paper

Topics