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Can money buy happiness?
The adage that "money can't buy happiness" is quite wrong, with even quite small lottery wins or inheritances able to produce lasting contentment, new research published in Britain has shown. Professors Andrew Oswald and Jonathan Gardner of Warwick University in central England tracked 9,000 families over the past decade to study whether
there was a link between cash windfalls and contentment. "We find a very strong link between cash falling on you and higher contentment and better mental health in the following year," said Oswald. "We have found effects from even tiny windfalls of 1,000 pounds. And the more you get, the better you feel." A windfall of a million pounds, the research showed, would be enough to transform even the most miserable persons into a
picture of joy. But Oswald stressed that the research looked at the average person, and could not account for everyone. The Sun newspaper, for example, carried a story about a tramp who won nearly two million pounds on Britain's National Lottery two years ago but ended up drinking himself to death.
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