Happiness on Nightline

One of the things that I have learned (the hard way) is that looking sensible on TV is harder than it looks.

That’s why I was happy when Nightline decided to interview my co-author Betsey Stevenson rather than me for a segment that ran last week summarizing our research on the relationship between income and happiness.

Freakonomics readers have already read plenty about that research (here), but I thought you might want to see the full Nightline segment, available here.

And if you are still interested in more, here’s a recent interview on BBC radio. If you read Italian, try this; or for the Swedes, see more here (or here).

(An aside: You will note that I referred to Betsey as my co-author, which she is, but that is only a partial description, as she is also my Wharton colleague, and also my longtime significant other. What is the right word for this? “Colleague plus?” I imagine that finding the right language for this is an increasingly common conundrum. Any suggestions?)