Shanghai residents may be better at making money than residents of other cities, but it hasn't made them happier, according to a recent study of 100 cities in China.

The city ranked third at earning money, but came in second from the bottom in terms of happiness, according to the Hong Kong-based China Institute of City Competitiveness, which published the study Wednesday.

The institute formed their rankings through interviews with local residents, opinions from experts and statistics from the government, said Xue Zhandong, director of the institute's research department.

Of the cities surveyed, Shanghai residents were only happier than those of Wuhu, a city of 2.2 million people in southeastern Anhui Province. Beijing ranked 96th. Qingdao, in Shandong Province, had the country's happiest people.

Although Shanghai residents were good at accumulating wealth, they reported being less satisfied than their peers with their quality of life, which included factors such as job stress, public transportation and air quality. "Personal wealth was only one of the factors we considered when evaluating people's happiness," Xue told the Global Times Thursday.

Still, it was a factor. And Shanghai residents did it well, ranking behind only Hong Kong and Shenzhen.

The institute also included a ranking for food safety, though it only released the top 10 cities, with Hong Kong, Taipei and Macao in the lead. Shanghai did not make the cut. "We based the rankings on local government's supervision of food quality, and whether there were enough local regulations governing food safety," Xue said. "The mainland cities are currently not performing as well as the other three."