Behavioral economics and Monetary Wisdom across 32 cultures: Good apples enjoy a good quality of life in good barrels

Monetary Wisdom asserts that individuals apply their deep-rooted values (ardent monetary aspirations) to frame critical concerns in the immediate-proximal and omnibus-distal contexts and strategically maximize expected utility (achieve financial goals) and ultimate serenity (happiness). This study explores the bright side of Monetary Wisdom and behavioral economics, frames money attitude in the context of pay and life satisfaction, and controls money at the micro and individual level (Z income within each country) and the macro and national and global level (GDP per capita). We theorize: Managers with low love of money motive but high stewardship behavior will have high subjective well-being: pay satisfaction and quality of life. Data collected from 6586 managers in 32 cultures across 6 continents support our theory. Interestingly, GDP per capita is related to life satisfaction, but not to pay satisfaction. Individual income is related to both life and pay satisfaction. Neither GDP nor income is related to the Happiness construct (money makes people happy). For the whole sample, low motives, high stewardship behaviors, and high cognitions identify the latent Monetary Wisdom (MW), which, in turn, leads to higher pay satisfaction than life satisfaction. Results of our formative model challenge the notion that motives and cognitions are consistent in predict outcomes. Our theoretical model across three GDP groups (high, medium, and low GDP levels) offers additional innovative discoveries: In high GDP (rich) entities, “high income” not only reduces aspirations—“Rich, Motivator, and Power,” but also promotes stewardship behavior—“Factors Budget, Give/Donate, and Contribute” and cognitive meaning, “Factor Achievement.” After controlling income, we demonstrate the bright side of Monetary Wisdom: Low love of money motive but high stewardship behavior define Monetary Wisdom, which contributes to higher life satisfaction than pay satisfaction. “Good apples enjoy a good quality of life in good barrels”. This notion adds another explanation to managers’ low magnitude of dishonesty in entities with high Corruption Perceptions Index (CPI) (risk aversion for gains in the high probability context). In medium GDP countries, high income is negatively related to Factors Motivator (motive), Budget (behavior), and Power (cognition). Managers enjoy higher life satisfaction than pay satisfaction. However, in low GDP (poor) entities, high income is related to poor Budgeting skills and escalated Happiness. Interestingly, income leads to the notion of high Happiness (cognition) for managers in low GDP countries only. Managers experience equal satisfaction with pay and life. Results of Monetary Wisdom add a new vocabulary to the conversation of monetary aspirations, intelligence, income, GDP, happiness, subjective well-being, good and bad apples, good and bad barrels, corruption, and behavioral ethics.