Good news for people whose bedrooms have more activity than their bank accounts: studies show that sex brings more happiness than money. This does not mean that we should be on the verge of misery, but in sexual activity is the secret of a happy life. Researchers prove that despite the common theory, most money does not contribute to getting more sex. After analyzing data on the sexual activity and happiness levels of 16,000 people, David Blanchflower, an economist at Dartmont College, and Andrew Oswald of the University of Warwick in England report that sex “enters the positive side of the happiness equation.” They calculated that the happiness of increasing intercourse from once a month to once a week is achieved by adding an extra $50,000 to the income of the average American. These arguments show that money can indeed make us happy, but not as much as that emotional engine, sex, the economists of this study say. Rich man, poor man: What’s the difference? NEWS_MORE_BOX The paper, “Money, Sex, and Happiness: An Empirical Study,” recently published by the National Bureau of Economic Research, essentially puts a dollar value on the level of happiness roughly equal to the outcomes of good sex and its attendant attributes. Despite popular belief, having more money doesn’t mean we can get more sex. There is no strong relationship between the frequency of sexual intercourse and a person’s income. But income determines the perception that it has a greater effect on the achievement of happiness for highly educated wealthy people than for those with lower educational status. In general, the happiest people are those who have the most sex. These are the family people as opposed to the single people. In fact, economists estimate that a lasting marriage equals the happiness generated by receiving an extra $100,000 each year. Divorce, meanwhile, translates into the language of numbers as a happiness drain of around $66,000 a year. Whether this strong, strong boost in happiness is the result of a problem-free marriage or is due to more frequent sex is a subject of long debate. The scientists’ “econometric” calculations confirm what psychologists have long known: people who think they are happy are usually more sexually active. Psychologist and sexologist Dr. Robert Hatfield, from the University of Cincinnati and spokesperson for the Society for the Scientific Study of Sexuality, has proven with many studies that people who are depressed have much less sex than happy people. Does sex lead to happiness or are happy people more likely to end up in the bedroom together? This is still a subject of research, but there is evidence that the psyche and sex are inextricably linked.