Comments on: Does Higher Income Increases Happiness?

By: dug

dug — Mon, 15 Jun 2009 02:11:53 +0000

Also, socialist venezuala and “socialist” denmark and norway are happier than the US. Milton Friedman’s favourite free market haven, Hong Kong is pretty wealthy, but is at the same happiness level as recently war torn Lebanon.

By: Patrik Sander (Sweden)

Patrik Sander (Sweden) — Mon, 27 Apr 2009 20:14:09 +0000

An other way to interpret this diagram is that the GDP per ct is about 40 times higher in the OECD:s compared to the fellow men in the poorest countries but the way we value our “life satisfaction” is only slightly more than doubled*, from approx 4 to 8 on the scale…

(* Unless satisfaction is logarithmic)

By: Mikael R

Mikael R — Wed, 22 Oct 2008 15:39:24 +0000

Remember to be critical about how ‘happiness’ is measured. Being from Denmark I can tell you have to remember to include the worlds highest taxes and a culture that strives towards average rather than excellense. Also with an average without knowing the dispersion you dont really know anything – called the fallacy of the average – or popularly in statistics it is the story of the man who drowned crossing a river where he knew the average depth only. What is to be taken from the graph is only the general trend that welth and happiness seems to have a correlation – although less strong than implied by the chart. Notice how the x-axis is logarithmic in values which overstates the positive angle of the implied trendline. Also notice how all countries are valued equally despite an obvious difference in population which should affect the weight it is given.
Applying the findings to countries that are closely plotted does not make any sense, nor to apply the findings to how individuals should react (move there) as it ignores what make up happinss (such as proximity to relatives and friends, culture, history, etc.).
Dont get me wrong, Denmark can be the way to go – for some countries, however not the US.

By: Paul

Paul — Sun, 03 Aug 2008 21:48:24 +0000

That’s honestly a bit surprising to me. It looks like Denmark is the way to go.

By: India Boy

India Boy — Sun, 20 Apr 2008 15:00:37 +0000

Very good Article! Thanks!

By: Traciatim

Traciatim — Fri, 18 Apr 2008 13:36:54 +0000

Wow, that’s one amazing chart. It looks to me like if you were in the USA or Canada and retiring soon it would be a great chart to find areas that are about 1/4 your GDP per capita yet rate high in life satisfaction. That way if you have a modest amount of retirement assets you can go there and live the ‘good life’ very cheaply as well as helping the local economies and people. It’s jut a win-win all around, I don’t understand why the majority of retirees aren’t doing that.