Money and Mental Wellbeing: A Longitudinal Study of Medium-Sized Lottery Wins

Jonathan Gardner and Andrew Oswald

No 269647, Economic Research Papers from University of Warwick - Department of Economics

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 U.S. $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.

Keywords: Financial Economics; Health Economics and Policy (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Pages: 27
Date: 2006-07-26
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Citations: View citations in EconPapers (11)

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Related works:
Journal Article: Money and mental wellbeing: A longitudinal study of medium-sized lottery wins (2007)
Working Paper: Money and Mental Wellbeing: A Longitudinal Study of Medium-Sized Lottery Wins (2006)
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Persistent link: https://EconPapers.repec.org/RePEc:ags:uwarer:269647

DOI: 10.22004/ag.econ.269647

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