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« Cybersquatting for Darwin? | Main | One Cheer for Mitch » May 04, 2007Grumpy in ParisDespite their national love affair with leisure time, the French are less happy than Americans. This is the conclusion of research discussed by Will Wilkinson in an NRO article today. More broadly, the research indicates that free markets do more to increase overall happiness in a nation than welfare programs: The numbers show that high average incomes, a low unemployment rate, extensive economic freedom, and relatively open labor markets tend to boost happiness levels, while generous welfare handouts, lower levels of inequality, and bigger government have little or no positive effect. The areas where the French do relatively well, such as low inequality and size of government, tend not to make its people feel much better, while the areas where they do poorly, such as unemployment and economic freedom, take a real bite out of happiness. The conclusion seems to be that while being poorer than your neighbor and/or working 50 hours a week instead of 35 might decrease an individual's happiness, the economic consequences of regulating the economy to eliminate those situations creates more unhappiness than it solves. Related ITA entries: Time off for le peuple (J. Claybourn) Posted by Eric Seymour at May 4, 2007 09:37 PM CommentsA nice map of "satisfaction with life": http://www.sciencemusings.com/blog/2006/08/bluebird-of-happiness.html And the Happy Planet Index: http://www.happyplanetindex.org/ And the World Bank's happiness index: http://www.andypryke.com/twiki/pub/Andypublic/HowToBeHappy/happiness_against_income.jpg One final note, it's dangerous to compare unemployment rates between countries because of the different methods used to calculate employment in each country. X percent unemployment in one country can't be compared to Y percent unemployment in another.
Posted by: Gregory Travis at May 4, 2007 11:17 PM | permalink I've not followed happiness research closely, but Wilkinson has, and, just for your edification, he has written on the White study here and the Happy Planet Index here. Posted by: Zach Wendling at May 5, 2007 01:35 PM | permalink Post a comment |
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