Happy people spend more money

Gulf Coast business owners and executives who have struggled to survive the recession might get sore from the multiple eye rolls to come out of the latest academic study on the economy.

The University of Miami School of Business Administration conducted the survey. The gist: Factors like good weather and good sports teams can put people in a better mood, which, in turn, can “make the impact of a recession weaker, shorter in length and easier to get over,” the study states.

The Gulf Coast, obviously, has the weather side down. And the sports side is pretty good, too. The Rays are baseball's small-market darlings, the Lightning just came within a goal of the Stanley Cup Finals and the Buccaneers are the hot football team on the rise in the NFL.

Yet the economic downturn lingers.

The study's authors, though, say their approach works because they studied how mood impacts economic conditions, not how economic conditions impact someone's mood — another point Coffee Talk would argue should be fairly obvious.

“Previous studies have shown that economic conditions affect mood - people would expect this, it's more obvious,” University of Miami School of Business professor and study co-author Alok Kumar says in a statement. “Our study is unique in that it shows, for the first time, that mood and optimism can directly affect overall economic activity.”