Does happiness bring you financial success? or does financial success bring you happiness? Recent research seems to support the idea that happiness brings financial success and not the reverse. In fact, there’s a growing body of research now that supports the connections among happiness, effectiveness, productivity and success.

Sonja Lyubamirsky, a University of California author of The How of Happiness: A Scientific Approach to Getting the Life You Want, has studied happiness extensively for almost 20 years. In her research she often asked, “What makes people happy?” Until a few years ago, her answer always reflected the common wisdom and empirical findings – “It’s relationships, stupid.” In other words, she responded that our interpersonal ties – the strength of our friendships, familial bonds, and intimate connections – show the highest correlations with well-being.

Lyubamirsky was surprised, after completing a study with fellow researchers Ed Diener and Laura King, to discover that not only social relationships are both the causes and consequences of being happy but just as important was being involved with meaningful work.

The evidence, for example, demonstrates that people who have jobs distinguished by autonomy, meaning and variety are happier. The research also showed that superior performance, creativity, and productivity are significantly higher with happier people than less happy people. . And, of course, the income that a job provides is also associated with happiness, though we now all know that money has more of an impact when we have less of it than more of it.

Why does our work make us happy? Because, Lyubamirsky claims, it provides us a sense of identity, structure to our days, and important and meaningful life goals to pursue. Perhaps even more important, it furnishes us with close colleagues, friends and even marriage partners. The story doesn’t end there. Not only does productivity at the office make people happy, but happier people have been found to be more productive. They are better “organizational citizens” (going above and beyond their job duties), better negotiators, and are less likely to take sick days, to quit, or to suffer burnout.

But here’s the real point. Happy people appear more likely to accrue greater wealth in life. For example, research has demonstrated that the happier a person is at one point in his life, the higher income he will earn at a later point. Researchers showed that those who were happy as college freshmen had higher salaries 16 years later, when they were about 37!

But before we find yet another reason to be envious of very happy people (not only do they get to feel great, but they get to have good jobs and make more money as well!), consider what the research on happiness and work suggests. It suggests that, when it comes to work life, we can create our own so-called “upward spirals.” The more successful we are at our jobs, the higher income we make, and the better work environment we have, the happier we will be. This increased happiness will foster greater success, more money, and an improved work environment, which will further enhance happiness, and so on and so on and so on.

So why don’t executives and managers take advantage of this research. Why isn’t happiness assessed in hiring and promoting people?