主讲人：叶茂亮 简介： 中国人民大学汉青经济与金融高级研究院助理教授。哈佛大学博士。同时他有工程学本科学位和工程学，经济学双硕士学位。他的研究兴趣是实验行为经济，以及包括公共经济学，劳动经济学，发展经济学和政治经济学在内的应用微观经济学。目前他在研究集体行为（例如公共物品的资源供给，协调，互信建立，解决社会困境上的合作），慈善，再分配，公众舆论（例如不平等和平等的认知，再分配的偏好），财政联邦制和主观幸福。     时间：10月31日（星期五）下午1:30-3:00     地点：国家发展研究院小教室     题目:  “Does Money Buy Happiness? Evidence from Twins in Urban China” (with Hongbin Li, Pak-wai Liu and Junsen Zhang) 摘要: Whether money makes people happy is a fundamental question in economics. This paper contributes to the literature on the effect of income on happiness, and to the best of our knowledge, it is the first study of this kind that draws on twins data. We control for the crucial genetic factors and family background by using unique Chinese twins data in a within-twin-pair fixed-effects model. We likewise use the instrumental variable fixed-effects method to correct the measurement error bias. The results are robust after we consider the potential biases of within-twin-pair estimates, the various measures of income and wealth, and the possibility of reverse causality. We find that income has a large positive effect on happiness: Beyond the effect of genes and family background, the pattern that the rich are happier than the poor is partly driven by the higher income of the formerper se. We further examine the cross effect of the income of twin siblings and find evidence that twins have a preference of inequality aversion towards their siblings. Our findings help us understand the inequality of subjective well-being in the context of economic development and transition, and present important implications for China and for other fast-growing and highly unequal countries.