Beyond meeting basic needs, income keeps rising but its contribution to wellbeing flattens out, while social connection keeps paying off — happiness economics tracks that shifting balance.
wellbeing ~ log(income) + connection_weight * social_ties
(Easterlin-paradox style diminishing income returns)
- Population agents — amber dots: individuals whose income and social ties are both tracked.
- Social connection nodes — teal diamonds: opportunities for meaningful social interaction available in the model.
- Income growth rate — how fast an income agent and a connection node convert into a wellbeing gain on contact.
- Social-connection value — how strongly social ties (versus income alone) contribute to measured wellbeing; also drives drift speed.
The Easterlin Paradox — national happiness plateauing even as income keeps rising — is exactly the diminishing-returns pattern this model reproduces: cyan "high-wellbeing" bursts fade out over a few seconds, and the population is continuously replenished so the balance keeps playing out.