If not, looks like we’re there now:

The latest addition to the burgeoning field of “happiness economics” has a sobering message for Britain: this is as good as it gets.

For years, economists have debated if there is a cut-off point beyond which growth adds nothing to wellbeing. Now – in a study published on Thursday, the day that official figures show the fastest growth for three years – two economists have gone a step further and estimated that “sweet spot” with some precision. And the UK has reached it.

According to Eugenio Proto of Warwick University and Aldo Rustichini of University of Minnesota, life satisfaction peaks when incomes per head – adjusted so that money buys the same basket of goods and services worldwide – reach $36,000 (£22,000) a year. Per capita incomes in the UK on this basis are $37,000. Beyond this point, they say, we get richer but less contented.

Study here: http://www.plosone.org/article/info%3Adoi%2F10.1371%2Fjournal.pone.0079358

It’s a good concept.

I have often wondered, apropos of immigration (I don’t want this comment to kick of another discussion on immigration, there’s enough already) undoubtedly being ‘good’ for GDP, whether the negative balance of general overcrowding does not actually count against it.

Aside from the ‘golden’ per-capita income idea, one thing which has helped standard of living massively over the last ten years has been the globalisation of many goods and the input of developing economies, all of which have helped drive down the cost of a great many consumer products. A number of minds superior to my own feel that growth in China is done – they will not overtake the USA and the easy gains have all been reaped and getting their GDP and productivity higher faces many and various insurmountable obstacles in relation to politics, infrastructure and demographics.