The “paradox of prosperity” recycled

BBC online decided to lead its news coverage of Britain’s latest Social Trends report (PDF) with Easterlin’s paradox: that beyond a certain point happiness does not rise with incomes. Given that Richard Easterlin formulated the paradox in the early 1970s, and it has been repeated many times since, it is hard to see how it qualifies as news. However, there is lots of useful empirical material in the full report.