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Today is "International Day of Happiness" :)
To mark this wonderful event we've explored that age-old question:
Does money buy happiness?
(a thread: 1/8)
>>> econ.st/2YaSDJp <<<
To mark this wonderful event we've explored that age-old question:
Does money buy happiness?
(a thread: 1/8)
>>> econ.st/2YaSDJp <<<
Plot GDP per person against self-reported happiness and the relationship appears strong: doubling GDP results in happiness increasing by about 0.7 points (on a ten-point scale). (2/8) 
But GDP growth does not always lead to happier countries :(
Take India: it's GDP per person has risen by 80% over the past decade, but its average self-reported happiness has fallen by more than a point. (3/8)
Take India: it's GDP per person has risen by 80% over the past decade, but its average self-reported happiness has fallen by more than a point. (3/8)
On the other hand, China's GDP has doubled over that same time and its happiness has risen by 0.4 points. (4/8)
Out of 125 countries for which good happiness data exist, 43 have moved in the opposite direction to GDP (33 of 85 shown in this chart) (5/8)
The remaining 82 have gotten happier over the past decade (52 out of 85 shown in chart). (6/8)
The diverging fortunes of the world's two most populous countries is likely to perplex economists for some time yet. (7/8)
We've made the data and code to reproduce these scatter charts available on our public GitHub repository :) (8/8)
>>> bit.ly/2ufpcZ0 <<<
>>> bit.ly/2ufpcZ0 <<<
And here’s the print version of the piece, hot off the press!
