The mechanism of the compound interest yields utility.
Depends on what you mean by “utility.” If “happiness” the evidence is very much unclear: though Life Satisfaction (LS) is correlated with income/GDP when we make cross-sectional measurement, LS is not correlated with income/GDP when we make time-series measurements. This is the Easterlin Paradox. Good overview of a recent paper on it, presented by its author. Full paper here. Good discussion of the paper on the EA forum here (responses from author as well Michael Plant in the comments).
Depends on what you mean by “utility.” If “happiness” the evidence is very much unclear: though Life Satisfaction (LS) is correlated with income/GDP when we make cross-sectional measurement, LS is not correlated with income/GDP when we make time-series measurements. This is the Easterlin Paradox. Good overview of a recent paper on it, presented by its author. Full paper here. Good discussion of the paper on the EA forum here (responses from author as well Michael Plant in the comments).