The 2008 Legatum Prosperity Index Report

PROSPERITY INDEX
The 2008 Legatum Prosperity Index Report

Methodology, Data and Findings
Legatum Institute
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Preface
Dear Reader,
Welcome to the 2008 Legatum Prosperity Index Report. This second edition builds on last
year’s inaugural publication, with increased coverage and refined analysis.
The Prosperity Index is an inquiry into the nature of prosperity and how it is created. This
year, scholars and researchers affiliated with the Legatum Institute have significantly
expanded the coverage of the Index, investigating prosperity drivers and outcomes in more
than 100 countries worldwide.
We define prosperity holistically to include both material wealth and quality of life. Rather than
replicating other measurements that rank countries by their actual levels of material wealth or
life satisfaction, the Index produces a ranking based on the conditions that foster prosperity --
that is, the factors that promote economic competitiveness and improved liveability in a given
country. We refer to these factors as drivers of prosperity and to those that impede prosperity,
as restrainers. The Index endeavours to rank countries according to the strength of these
drivers and restrainers, not according to simple measures of income and life satisfaction. In
this way we hope to contribute to a richer analysis of what promotes prosperity globally.
This Report introduces the methodology, data, and findings of the 2008 Prosperity Index,
presents country profiles for each of the 104 countries covered, and includes three original
research and policy papers by leading scholars on various dimensions of prosperity.
We have also produced a shorter pamphlet, Summary and Commentary, to complement this
Report. This Report and the Summary and Commentary, as well as interactive tools allowing
users to explore the data and conduct their own research, are available online at
www.prosperity.com.
We very much hope that you find this 2008 Prosperity Index Report of interest and welcome
any comments and feedback that you may have.
Yours sincerely,
William C. Inboden Alan McCormick

Senior Vice President Managing Director
Legatum Institute Legatum Limited
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Mission Statement for the Prosperity Index
The purpose of the Prosperity Index is to encourage policymakers, scholars, the media, and
the interested public to take a holistic view of prosperity and understand how it is created.
Holistic prosperity extends beyond just material wealth, and includes factors such as social
capital, health, equality of opportunity, the environment, effective governance, human rights
and liberties, and overall quality of life.
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Legatum Prosperity Index Academic Advisory Panel
Dr. Daniel Drezner

Tufts University
Dr. Peter Feaver
Duke University
Dr. Robert Jensen
University of California, Los Angeles
Dr. Stephen Krasner
Stanford University
Dr. Michael Kremer
Harvard University
Dr. Philip Levy
American Enterprise Institute
Dr. Edmund Malesky
University of California, San Diego
Dr. Ann Owen
Hamilton College
Dr. Robert Putnam
Harvard University
The Legatum Institute wishes to thank the members of the Academic Advisory Panel for
helpful advice, critiques and suggestions. The Legatum Institute assumes full responsibility for
the content of the Prosperity Index. The participation in the Academic Advisory Panel does
not imply endorsement of every aspect of the 2008 Prosperity Index.
The Legatum Institute also wishes to thank Gallup, Inc. for permission to use the Gallup
World Poll Service© and Gallup World Poll Data in construction of the Prosperity Index.
Copyright Gallup 2007. All rights reserved.
Finally, the Legatum Institute recognises Oxford Analytica (www.oxan.com), an independent

consultancy that has for 30 years provided authoritative analysis of geopolitical events, for its
assistance in compiling the Prosperity Index.
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“[The] Gross National Product counts air pollution and cigarette
advertising, and ambulances to clear our highways of carnage…It
counts the destruction of the redwood and the loss of our natural
wonder in chaotic sprawl…Yet the Gross National Product does not
allow for the health of our children, the quality of their education or
the joy of their play. It does not include the beauty of our poetry or
the strength of our marriages, the intelligence of our public debate
or the integrity of our public officials…it measures everything, in
short, except that which makes life worthwhile.”
Senator Robert F. Kennedy1
1
Senator Robert F. Kennedy, speech at the University of Kansas, Lawrence, Kansas, March
18, 1968
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Table of Contents
PREFACE 2
MISSION STATEMENT FOR THE PROSPERITY INDEX 3
LEGATUM PROSPERITY INDEX ACADEMIC ADVISORY PANEL 4
EXECUTIVE SUMMARY 9
Background: The Prosperity Index in Context ......................................................................9
Index Methodology.............................................................................................................10
Key Conclusions Regarding the Subindices.......................................................................11
Special Topics....................................................................................................................12
Country Profiles..................................................................................................................12
Country Rankings...............................................................................................................12
1. INTRODUCTION: THE PROSPERITY INDEX IN CONTEXT 13
1.1 The Insufficiency of GDP as an Indicator of National Prosperity ..................................13
Is GDP too Narrow? 13
Attempts to Create Alternative Indicators 13
Theoretical Criticisms 14
1.2 Measures of National Prosperity Based on Subjective Wellbeing ................................15
The Science of Subjective Wellbeing 15
Wellbeing Indicators in Practice 15
1.3 The Case for the Legatum Prosperity Index .................................................................16
Growing Interest in Wellbeing 16
The Legatum Prosperity Index 17
Comparing Prosperity Index Scores and Prosperity Performance 17
The Prosperity Index Report 19
2. METHODOLOGY 22
2.1 How We Built the Index ................................................................................................22
Combining Competitiveness and Liveability 22
Considering Different Levels Of Development 22
Making the Biggest Difference 26
Why Use a Dynamic Weighting Scheme? 26
2.2 Building the Economic Competitiveness Index.............................................................27
An Approach Based on Growth Models 27
Investing Productively 28
Commercialising New Ideas (or Innovation as per Figure) 31
Avoiding Dependency 34
2.3 Building the Comparative Liveability Index ...................................................................35
An Approach Based on Cross-National Analysis 35
What Does Comparative Liveability Mean in Practice? 36
Fosters Freedom and Opportunity 37
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Creates an Environment for Wellbeing 38
Alleviates Sources of Misery 41
Builds Social Supports 44
3. SPECIAL TOPICS: ENTREPRENEURSHIP AND ECONOMIC GROWTH 54
3.1 Introduction ..................................................................................................................54
3.2 Economic Growth: The Traditional View.......................................................................54
3.3 Globalisation and the Role of Knowledge.....................................................................57
3.4 The Knowledge Filter and Entrepreneurship ................................................................59
3.5 Entrepreneurship Policy ...............................................................................................61
3.6 Conclusion ...................................................................................................................63
3.7 References...................................................................................................................63
4. SPECIAL TOPICS: CHARITY AND HAPPINESS 66
4.1 Introduction ..................................................................................................................66
4.2 Giving is Linked to Happiness: the Evidence................................................................66
4.3 Why Does Giving Bring Happiness? ............................................................................69
4.4 Giving Makes us Richer, Too .......................................................................................70
4.5 Public Policy and Private Attitudes ...............................................................................71
4.6 Who are the Givers? ....................................................................................................73
4.7 Conclusion ...................................................................................................................74
5. SPECIAL TOPICS: THE ROLE OF FREEDOM AND CONTROL IN EXPLAINING HAPPINESS 78
5.1 Introduction ..................................................................................................................78
5.2 A Universal Predictor of Happiness?............................................................................78
5.3 Freedom of Choice.......................................................................................................83
5.4 Freedom with Control: the ‘Sails’ Hypothesis ...............................................................84
5.5 Freedom and Control ...................................................................................................86
5.6 Institutions and Public Policies .....................................................................................87
5.7 References...................................................................................................................90
6. APPENDIX: GALLUP WORLD POLL TECHNICAL INFORMATION 99
Question Wording ..............................................................................................................99
Survey Details ....................................................................................................................99
7. ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS 105
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Table of Figures
Figure 1.1 Scatterplot of Country Scores on The Legatum Index of Economic
Competitiveness Against Income per capita 18
Figure 1.2 Scatterplot of Country Scores on the Legatum Index of Comparative Liveability
Against average Subjective Wellbeing 19
Figure 2.1 Illustration of The Relationship between government effectiveness and economic
growth, as assessed by a standard linear regression 23
Figure 2.2 Illustration of The Relationship between government effectiveness and economic
growth, as assessed by a LOWESS regression 24
Figure 2.3 The Relationship between government effectiveness and economic growth,
varying by income 25
Figure 2.4 The Relationship between government effectiveness and economic growth,
showing selected countries 25
Figure 2.5. Weights for the Competitiveness Index Factors as Assigned by Lowess
Regresssion 28
Figure 2.6. Income Growth for Switzerland and Other Rich Countries, 1980-2005 31
Figure 2.7. Weights for the Liveability Index Factors as Assigned by Lowess Regression, With
Income Included 37
Figure 3.1: Rate of Entrepreneurship in Selected Countries, 1972 to 2004 56
Figure 3.2: Countries Innovative Propensity, 1883 to 2006 58
Figure 3.3: Entrepreneurship Allows Ideas With Commercial Potential To Cross The
Knowledge filter 60
Figure 4.1. Giving, volunteering, and self-reports on Happiness 67
Figure 4.2. Volunteering rates and percentage of populations saying they are “very happy” 68
Figure 4.3. Real charitable giving and income per capita in the United States, 1954-2004 71
Figure 4.4. Average annual giving by Americans according to responses to the statement,
“The government has a responsibility to reduce income inequality”, 1996 73
Figure 5.1. Life Satisfaction Vs. Freedom&control 81
Table 5.1. Predictors of Happiness: Summary of results 82
Figure 5.2. Happiness and Freedom according to different views 83
Figure 5.3. Happiness and Freedom with Different Flavours of Control 85
Table 5.2. Freedom&control equation 87
Figure 5.4. The Explanatory Power of Freedom&control by GDP per capita 90
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Executive Summary
The Legatum Prosperity Index endeavours to suggest answers to, and to encourage public
discussion of, two important questions: What constitutes national prosperity? And, what can
help countries become more prosperous?
The Prosperity Index is unique in at least three ways:
First, it takes a holistic view of prosperity, encompassing both material wealth and life
satisfaction. In other words, the Index reflects the conviction that ‘prosperity is about more
than money’. This is not merely a theoretical assumption or an uninformed normative
preference, but is rather based on substantial empirical research into the sources of both
material and subjective wellbeing. In practice, this means the Index is based on two equally
weighted subindices: economic competitiveness (factors that explain differences in countries’
relative levels of material wealth) and comparative liveability (factors that explain differences
in countries’ relative levels of life satisfaction).
Second, it assesses the drivers and causes of prosperity, rather than measuring outcomes.
This means that the Index assesses nations based on whether or not they are cultivating the
practices and institutions that create prosperity, not according to how prosperous they
currently are. For this reason, it is possible for country A to have a higher per capita Gross
Domestic Product (GDP) than country B, but to be ranked lower in the Index because, for
instance, it is highly dependent on natural resource exports and does not foster high levels of
entrepreneurship. In such an instance, country A’s prosperity may be less sustainable in the
long term regardless of its current per capita GDP.
Third, it includes factors that relate to government policy and to individual citizens. A nation’s
prosperity is a function of more than its government’s policies. The Index uses indicators of
economic progress and quality of life that include the domain of government activity but also
encompass what citizens themselves are doing, or not doing, to increase prosperity. The
Index is a tool not only for policymakers but also for leaders and concerned citizens in all of
society’s sectors.
The Index is presented in a set of publications. The Summary and Commentary introduces
the Index and gives an overview of our interpretation of the findings. This Report describes
the methodology and indicators in detail, profiles each of the countries covered in the Index,
and presents research and policy papers on key topics of prosperity. A Technical Appendix
describes the research methodology in detail. All these publications, together with an
extensive set of interactive data analysis tools, are available at www.prosperity.com.
Background: The Prosperity Index in Context

Measurement of Gross Domestic Product (GDP) has become insufficient as an indicator of
national prosperity. Critiques began to emerge in the 1950s and 1960s, noting that GDP,
which had by that time become the de facto measure of national wellbeing, does not account
for costs and benefits to human welfare such as pollution or public health. This set off a public
debate about the best way to characterise national prosperity, which continues to the present
day.
Development economists created Human Development Indicators as alternatives to GDP.
However, these indicators have not succeeded in surpassing GDP in the policy discourse.
They mainly represent international consensus on a set of specific policy objectives and
do not constitute an alternative comprehensive measure of national wellbeing.
More recently, empirical research from the field of behavioural economics has led to
renewed criticism of the GDP-centric notion of prosperity. This research has highlighted
the need for an alternative, empirically founded prosperity measure to complement
commonly accepted economic measures.
The rapidly growing body of research on ‘subjective wellbeing’, known more popularly as the
‘science of happiness’, offers the potential for such a measure. Subjective wellbeing is an
empirical approach that attempts to understand life satisfaction from the vantage point of how
people assess their own lives. Based on the lived experience of individuals rather than
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abstract theories of ‘happiness’, subjective wellbeing measurements hold considerable
promise for assessing holistic prosperity.
Although the science of subjective wellbeing has its critics, research has produced a
significant body of evidence suggesting that these survey data provide a reliable and
consistent measure of wellbeing. The evidence includes demonstrations that individuals’
assessments of their wellbeing are not arbitrary and are valid across different cultural
contexts.
The Legatum Prosperity Index makes use of research in this area to enable empirical
analysis of how policy and personal choices can increase the liveability in a country.
The Legatum Prosperity Index is a response to a growing interest in wellbeing and measures
of prosperity that complement purely economic metrics. Until now, however, there has been
little understanding of how these new indicators can be used to assess prosperity in a variety
of countries. As a result, the Index seeks to establish an approach that combines these new
indicators of subjective wellbeing with economic measures to determine which countries are
doing the most to foster holistic prosperity.
The Index is not designed to identify the happiest and wealthiest nations. Instead, the
Index ranks nations by how well they are doing the kinds of things necessary to raise
GDP (i.e., promoting economic competitiveness) and to raise average subjective
wellbeing or life satisfaction (i.e., promoting comparative liveability). It is an Index of the
drivers of prosperity rather than an index of prosperity outcomes.
This does not mean, however, that the Index is only loosely related to actual prosperity
outcomes. In fact, it correlates very strongly with outcomes. A country’s competitiveness
and liveability scores on the Prosperity Index explain 75% and 76% of the variation in
average per capita income and average subjective wellbeing, respectively.
Index Methodology
The two pillars of prosperity, Economic Competitiveness and Comparative Liveability are
assessed separately and weighted equally for the overall Index ranking. This allows the
reader to compare the evaluation of a particular country from the traditional point of view
focusing on economic growth as well as from the human development-centred perspective
that looks more generally at wellbeing and quality of life.
The indicators that comprise the Index were identified and weighted based on statistical
analysis, using 40 years of historical data on economic growth in more than 50 countries,
and life satisfaction survey data for more than 100 countries.
The Index combines 22 key indicators and 44 subindicators in order to rank more than
100 countries, based on the degree to which the actions of their people and governments
drive or restrain the creation of holistic national prosperity.
The Index uses a dynamic weighting scheme. This means, for instance, that the
importance of capital, trade openness or entrepreneurship will change as countries reach
higher levels of national wealth.
The Index then makes an initial assessment of the importance of the different factors
relative to each other. In other words, the Index attempts to show where policymakers
and citizens can make the biggest difference in enhancing national prosperity.
In technical terms, the first step in determining the weights of factors in the Index is to
group countries into sub-samples of similar GDP levels and derive factor weights via
regression analysis. Our method of ‘locally weighted scatterplot smoothing’ (LOWESS)
does not require specifying a global function across all income levels. Instead, at each
level of GDP per capita, a least squares regression of the indicator on the outcome
variable is run for a band of observations around the point, with more weight given to
observations closer to the point (‘locally weighted’), resulting in a LOWESS curve.
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Key Conclusions Regarding the Subindices
There are two different theoretical frameworks dominating the derivation of economic growth
equations that are used for statistical research: the neoclassical growth model and the
endogenous growth model. The factors included in the Economic Competitiveness Index are
drawn from the empirical academic literature on these models.
For poorer countries (those with average incomes of less than $10,000 per capita), where
increasing material wealth is a particular priority, the most important components of
economic competitiveness are:
Government Effectiveness
Levels of Education
Growth in Invested Capital
Low Costs of Starting a Business
Commercialisation of Innovation
Low Dependence on Foreign Aid
Low Dependence on Commodity Exports
Economic Openness
For richer countries (those with incomes greater than $20,000 per capita) that wish to
experience continued economic growth, the most important components of
competitiveness include:
Invested Capital
Levels of Education
Entrepreneurship
Commercialisation of Innovation
There is a small but growing literature on the determinants of the differences in wellbeing
among nations. We created our own cross-country historical data set to test and weight the
factors suggested by this literature and our own research, as determinants of life satisfaction
differentials. While the Comparative Liveability Index contains many factors driven by
individual choice, the weightings of the Index factors reflect a comparative national
perspective. That is to say, the Index weights are based on the variability of indicators
between nations, not between individuals.
In richer countries, where moving beyond material wealth to broader wellbeing is an
important goal, the most important components of comparative liveability include:
Continued High Levels of Income
Good Health
Political Rights and Civil Liberties
Freedom of Choice
Charitable Giving
Family Life
Equality of Opportunity
Pleasant Natural Environment
Community Life
Religious Freedom
Many poor countries have surprisingly high levels of wellbeing, because traditional social
strengths can compensate, at least somewhat, for low average standards of living. In poor
countries, the most important components of comparative liveability include:
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Family Life
A Warm Climate
Religious Faith
Special Topics
This year, the Legatum Prosperity Index Report includes significant new research on three
topics pertaining to prosperity: entrepreneurship, charitable giving and freedom of choice.
“Entrepreneurship and Economic Growth”, by David Audretsch, offers new insights on the
link between entrepreneurship and economic growth. Audretsch explains why
policymakers lost interest in entrepreneurship during the post-war period and argues that
entrepreneurship is now central to economic progress. “Entrepreneurship provides an
important mechanism that actually transforms investments in knowledge, ideas and
creativity, into innovative activity”, he writes.
“Happiness and Charity”, by Arthur Brooks, presents an engaging survey of new research
that links charitable giving and life satisfaction. Brooks contends that “the evidence is
clear that gifts of money -- as well as gifts of time -- to charitable organisations, houses of
worship, and other worthy causes, bring authentic happiness to givers”.
“The Role of Freedom and Control in Explaining Happiness”, by Paolo Verme, analyses
the World Values Survey data in detail, finding a robust link between freedom of choice
and wellbeing in more than 80 countries worldwide. Verme claims, “The more control we
think we have over our own choices, the more we appreciate and exploit freedom of
choice. In one sentence, freedom is nothing without control”. He concludes his paper with
policy suggestions stemming from this finding.
Country Profiles
This Report concludes with detailed country profiles for each of the 104 countries in the 2008
Legatum Prosperity Index.
Country Rankings
Full Prosperity Index
Economic Competitiveness Subindex
Comparative Liveability Subindex
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1. Introduction: the Prosperity Index in Context
The use of economic indicators to assess national prosperity and to set policy targets is a
familiar exercise. Governments highlight their achievements using indicators such as
unemployment and inflation, and are called to account when their country’s economy
stagnates or moves into recession.
Most readers will intuitively understand the Economic Competitiveness section of the
Prosperity Index, which is based on such indicators. Our Economic Competitiveness Index
offers an alternative view of competitiveness, but one with core components -- such as
education and entrepreneurship -- that will be well known to those with an interest in
economic policy.
The Comparative Liveability section of the Index may be less familiar. Indeed, some readers
may wonder if anything meaningful can be said about something as intangible as ‘national
happiness’ or quality of life for an entire country.
This introduction will argue that, in both theory and practice, the era of non-economic
measures of national wellbeing as critical policy targets has arrived. Wellbeing indicators --
indicators of a country’s liveability -- will soon become as important as indicators of economic
performance to growing numbers of policymakers and will likely play a more formal role in the
future as countries set national priorities.
This section first highlights the theoretical and practical limits of GDP. It then goes on to
explain why survey-based indicators of life satisfaction or happiness offer a valid alternative
paradigm for investigating and assessing the wellbeing of nations, and how the Prosperity
Index fits into this paradigm.
1.1 The Insufficiency of GDP as an Indicator of National Prosperity
IS GDP TOO NARROW?

Growth in economic output has often been used to measure the success or failure of nations.
For instance, policymakers often map the world by describing low-income countries as
‘developing’, and countries with high incomes as ‘developed’ (or, even more starkly, ‘first
world’ and ‘third world’). Economic output serves not only as a measure, but also as the
paradigm through which economic and social performances are commonly evaluated. In
short, GDP is a generally accepted proxy for how prosperous a given country is.
As a result, policymakers are sometimes faulted for applying a ‘GDP-centric’ view of the world
to decisions they make about development. Critics have pointed out that GDP provides too
narrow a lens for assessing human welfare (the quote from Senator Robert F. Kennedy at the
beginning of this Report captures this well). The principal objection is that focussing on GDP
places too much emphasis on economic growth, turning it into an end in itself rather than a
means to prosperity.
This critique of GDP first surfaced as a review of priorities in affluent societies during the
1950s and 1960s, and eventually prompted new ideas about how best to understand the
welfare of societies. The critics recognised that while an increase in GDP per capita reflects
an increase in purchasing power, it does not account for quality of the environment, crime
rates, civil liberties and other costs or benefits to human welfare. In other words, the GDP-
centric view implies that accumulating wealth is always and unambiguously positive.
Evaluating policies solely with regard to their impact on GDP growth therefore fails to capture
true policy trade-offs. This criticism has resulted in an exploration of more appropriate
measures of national prosperity.2
ATTEMPTS TO CREATE ALTERNATIVE INDICATORS

The primacy of GDP as a paradigm for evaluating progress has been challenged -- perhaps
most successfully -- in the context of development economics. Scholars in this field have
pioneered alternative indicators such as the Human Development Index and the Millennium
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Development Goals. These indicators conceptualise human development more broadly by
including assessments of the fulfilment of certain basic human needs.
The Human Development Index has won perhaps the most support. This Index combines
several policy targets, including GDP per capita, life expectancy and educational enrolment in
a weighted Index (most recently topped by Iceland, followed by Norway, Australia, Canada
and Ireland).
However, such alternative indices have not superseded GDP in practice or in the policy
discourse. One reason might be that the Human Development Index does not enable the
assessment of policy trade-offs common to decision-making in the realm of public policy. Like
other social indicators of its kind, the Human Development Index mainly represents
international consent on a set of specific policy objectives but -- unlike GDP -- does not
provide a comprehensive measurement concept.
In addition, the Human Development Index is not well suited to monitoring social welfare in
high-income countries, where the basic needs on which the Index focuses are lower-priority
issues (such as the significance of enrolment in tertiary education versus primary school in
Europe).
Hence, except in limited contexts, GDP has prevailed as a guide to policymaking, and has
remained the most widely-used proxy for general social and economic welfare.
THEORETICAL CRITICISMS
In a theoretical context, a higher GDP per capita indicates that individuals have greater
purchasing power to consume goods and services. Rising GDP should increase people’s
‘utility’ (their satisfaction) by allowing for more consumption. Hence rising national incomes
should indicate rising national wellbeing.
Critics such as Nobel Laureate Economist Amartya Sen have used a philosophical
perspective to target the shortcomings of the concept of utility maximisation. Their efforts
have concentrated on criticising the axioms of how individuals choose according to the homo
economicus model -- the rational-choice model of the ‘economic man’.3
These critics of homo economicus do not necessarily challenge the idea that individuals
maximise their utility (i.e., pursue their own welfare). Rather, the theoretical debate has
centred around how to redefine welfare so that it reflects individual wellbeing.
However, alternative schemes for quantifying welfare are difficult to produce in practice. Any
quantification of human welfare seems likely to fall into the trap of imposing a concept of a
prosperous life -- just as, for instance, the GDP-centric notion of prosperity, in effect, assumes
that individuals prosper through acquisition and consumption.
More recently, not just the definition of utility, but also the concept of maximising utility has
come under fire. Building on evidence from psychology, researchers have identified
idiosyncrasies of human decision-making that stand in contrast to the overly rational model
utilised by neoclassical economic theory.
Pioneers in this field, such as Nobel Laureate Daniel Kahneman and Amos Tversky, mostly
using controlled experiments with human subjects in laboratory settings, have identified
decision-making idiosyncrasies that might be construed as biases, such as preferences for
altruism and for fairness.4
Other biases appear to be ‘hard-wired’ into who we are, such as the tendency to prevent loss
rather than pursue gain, perhaps because of the greater intensity of feeling involved in losing
what is valuable, or perhaps because humans place a greater value on personal possessions
than their worth in the marketplace.
This implies that people do not necessarily wish to maximise utility when it is defined in
financial terms. Furthermore, the utility we might expect people to derive from consuming
particular goods turns out to be different for different people. Income, therefore, has serious
shortcomings as a sole indicator of welfare and prosperity.
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1.2 Measures of National Prosperity Based on Subjective
Wellbeing
THE SCIENCE OF SUBJECTIVE WELLBEING

In this context, a promising alternative approach -- and the approach on which the
Comparative Liveability section of the Prosperity Index is based -- is to analyse national
prosperity by complementing measures of economic progress with survey-based measures of
subjective wellbeing.
The rapidly growing academic analysis of ‘subjective wellbeing’ is known more popularly as
the ‘science of happiness’. Subjective wellbeing is an empirical approach that attempts to
understand life satisfaction in a manner that is free of theoretical assumptions about what
constitutes a prosperous life.
As such, it provides a promising complement to GDP or income as a measure of national and
individual prosperity. Together with measures of material wealth, subjective wellbeing metrics
provide an alternative assessment of how people perceive progress in their overall condition.
Research on subjective wellbeing begins by assuming that the most straightforward approach
to obtaining indicators of wellbeing is simply to ask people a variety of questions about their
lives. Survey questions focus on ‘happiness’ and ‘life satisfaction’ as well as pleasant and
unpleasant moods such as anger and contentment. There are binary questions that ask
individuals whether they are satisfied or dissatisfied, and questions that ask respondents to
rank some aspect of personal wellbeing on a scale from zero (or one) to ten.5
Psychologists describe subjective wellbeing as comprised of ‘cognitive’ and ‘affective’
components. The affective component relates to an individual’s immediate emotional
response to life events, while the cognitive component captures intellectual assessments of
life as a whole. The relative weight of these components can differ depending on the given
question and on the particular person asked. Responses to questions about happiness or
moods in general are largely affective measures, whereas self-reported life satisfaction is
generally based upon cognitive appraisals.6
WELLBEING INDICATORS IN PRACTICE

The science of subjective wellbeing has not been without its critics. Some criticisms of the
practical methods employed include:
How capable and truthful are individuals when confronted with these sorts of questions?
Can a rating on a ten-point scale really provide a meaningful indicator of something as
complex as human wellbeing?
Do linguistic barriers and cultural diversity permit valid comparisons of subjective
wellbeing ratings in different countries and cultures?
In sum, are measures of subjective wellbeing simply too subjective to be valuable?
Other criticisms have been rooted in human psychology. Studies have shown that people’s
assessments of their own wellbeing are subject to cognitive influences. That is to say, the
effects of mental processes, and not just real-world events, strongly influence life satisfaction
survey results. Survey respondents exhibit habituation (reduced responsiveness to repeated
or continued stimulus), aspiration (expectations correlated with current and past attainments),
social comparison (relative versus absolute levels), and coping (adaptation to misfortune).
These are fair questions. However, researchers in this field have produced a significant body
of evidence suggesting that subjective utility is a sufficiently reliable, valid, and consistent
measure of wellbeing.
The evidence includes:
Demonstrations that individuals’ assessments of their wellbeing respond to real-world
events and are not merely the result of mental processes. Despite cognitive influences,
individuals’ reported wellbeing responds in predictable ways to observable changes -- or
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a lack of changes -- in real-world events and conditions.7 Socio-economic panel surveys
that track individuals over time, for instance, demonstrate rising levels of wellbeing in
anticipation of marriage, a period of marital bliss, and then subsequent habituation to the
new life situation. Yet the ‘baseline level’ of reported wellbeing among married people
remains higher than for the unmarried. Hence, it is clear that individuals’ self-
assessments of their wellbeing are affected by changes in circumstances, despite the
effects of mental processes.8
Demonstrations that survey responses are not arbitrary. Different measures of wellbeing
such as life satisfaction, happiness, or best versus worst life assessments correlate with
each other, as well as with physiological responses such as electrical brain activity, heart
rate, frequency of smiles during social interaction and work absenteeism.9 Behavioural
correlates have also been observed. For example, higher national average levels of
wellbeing correlate with lower national suicide rates.10 Evidence thus suggests that even
simple survey questions can reveal meaningful differences in wellbeing among people. 11
Demonstrations of validity in different cultural contexts. Studies also show that wellbeing
is affected by similar influences across cultures in spite of its subjective nature and
potential linguistic biases. The survey responses of bilingual respondents and of speakers
of different languages in the same country tend to be highly correlated. Seminal research
in this area, covering 14 nations with a wide range of cultures and in different stages of
economic development, investigated individuals’ expectations for life by means of open-
ended questions. Responses almost always related to material living standards, family
concerns, good health and a good job, followed by domestic and international concerns.
This does not imply that interpersonal comparison between any two individuals will yield
meaningful conclusions, but it does give credibility to comparisons of subjective wellbeing
among sizable groups of people, such as the populations of different countries.12
Demonstrations that the simple scales used in these questions produce valid results in
practice. Obviously, different points on a ten-point scale will mean different things to
different people. We cannot define how a person’s subjective wellbeing rated at seven
differs from a person’s subjective wellbeing rated at eight. The numbers have no inherent
meaning. However, for statistical analyses that use large samples to explain variations in
subjective wellbeing, this does not pose a problem. Different understandings of the
ratings will create what statisticians call ‘measurement error’. But with a sufficiently large
sample, the sensitivity of the analysis to individual measurement error is small.13
In summary, the theoretical objections to subjective utility measures are relatively unimportant
for practical purposes. Subjective wellbeing indicators are adequately reliable and consistent,
while cultural biases are not strong enough to undermine the usefulness of cross-national
comparisons.
Furthermore, such indicators provide a quantifiable measure of individual welfare, the validity
of which is neither contingent on the truth of theoretical assumptions about what a
‘prosperous life’ is, nor dependent on normative claims about what people or nations should
do to become more prosperous. Like GDP, and in contrast to social indicators, subjective
wellbeing provides a single, comprehensive measure that allows for analysis of national
prosperity, rather than reflecting a set of policy objectives.
1.3 The Case for the Legatum Prosperity Index
GROWING INTEREST IN WELLBEING

The arguments regarding the limits of GDP are not simply a matter of academic debate.
There is growing interest worldwide in understanding prosperity in terms that go beyond
material standards of living, and comprehend more holistically the human person.
This interest has produced a surge in the number of books and newspaper articles covering
research on subjective wellbeing. Increasingly, the idea that determinants of happiness are
rooted not only in material progress, but also in broader social and political realities, is gaining
academic attention and empirical support.
PAGE 16 OF 105
Thirty years ago, Ronald Inglehart argued that a shift was taking place from materialist to
post-materialist values in the Western world. His research suggested that political cultures in
affluent Western societies had come to place more value on non-material issues, such as the
environment or political liberties, than on economic security and material living conditions.14
While it is possible to find many points to dispute in such a broad argument, Inglehart’s
provocative assertions certainly succeeded in launching an interesting (and ongoing) debate.
Moreover, his arguments now seem prescient, as increasingly affluent societies have indeed
come to prioritise non-material sources of prosperity to a greater degree.
This trend is not confined to the West. Some governments in Asia have launched their own
investigations into subjective wellbeing. The government of Bhutan, for instance, has
announced that Gross National Happiness is the country’s primary development objective.
More broadly, in a region that has experienced extraordinary economic growth in recent
decades, there seems to be a mounting realisation in some sectors that prosperity entails
more than the material wellbeing produced by that growth.15
In 2007, the OECD, the European Commission, the Organisation of the Islamic Conference,
the UN, and the World Bank signed the Istanbul Declaration. This endorses “the progress of
societies in all their dimensions”. This initiative at a supranational level reflects the importance
that policymakers are now placing on the establishment of a comprehensive and
internationally accepted measure of prosperity, or, in the words of the declaration: “to form a
shared view of societal wellbeing and its evolution over time”.16
THE LEGATUM PROSPERITY INDEX

The Legatum Prosperity Index has been produced within the larger context of this debate on
the nature of prosperity. The Index seeks to investigate human flourishing in a way that is
grounded in empirical research and faithful to those aspects of wellbeing that appear to be
universal, regardless of national origin.
With the growing recognition of the importance of alternative measures of prosperity, what is
needed is an understanding of how nations can become more prosperous -- both in terms of
enhancing GDP and enhancing subjective wellbeing. The Legatum Prosperity Index is a
response to this need.
The Index is not designed to identify the happiest and wealthiest nations. Instead, it is an
Index of the drivers of prosperity rather than an index of prosperity outcomes. Specifically, the
Index ranks nations on how well they are doing the kinds of things necessary to raise GDP
(i.e., enhancing economic competitiveness) and to raise average subjective wellbeing or life
satisfaction (i.e., enhancing comparative liveability).
The research conducted to create the Index (discussed in the next chapter) suggests that the
factors that tend to increase average subjective wellbeing are sometimes different from the
factors that tend to increase GDP. This further underlines the insufficiency of GDP as a
holistic measure of national welfare. Moreover, many factors, such as good governance,
appear to enhance both competitiveness and liveability. However, some factors that have
limited immediate effects on economic performance -- such as people’s satisfaction with air
quality -- do appear to impact subjective wellbeing significantly.
The Legatum Prosperity Index is a tool that enables individuals and governments to draw on
new research to inform personal decisions and policy choices regarding the prosperity of their
societies. Following a statistical approach, the Prosperity Index is founded on the belief that
sound indicators both empower citizens and enhance the transparency and accountability that
are central to the democratic policymaking process.
COMPARING PROSPERITY INDEX SCORES AND PROSPERITY PERFORMANCE

While the factors in the Index have been included on the basis of empirical evidence, their
selection and the research behind the Prosperity Index are informed by certain assumptions
about how national wellbeing can be enhanced. For this reason, and because of limits in our
understanding of how economic growth and subjective wellbeing are produced, country
scores on the Index differ somewhat from wellbeing outcomes.
PAGE 17 OF 105
However, overall the Index does correlate very strongly with prosperity outcomes. A country’s
competitiveness and liveability scores on the Prosperity Index explain 75% and 76% of the
variation in average per capita incomes and average subjective wellbeing, respectively
(adjusted R-squared values are 0.75 and 0.76). For a further discussion, see Figures 1.1 and
1.2.
FIGURE 1.1 SCATTERPLOT OF COUNTRY SCORES ON THE LEGATUM INDEX OF

ECONOMIC COMPETITIVENESS AGAINST INCOME PER CAPITA
40000
NOR USA
IRL
GDP Per Capita (PPP-adjusted USD)
CHE HKG
30000
DNK
NLD AUT AUS
SWE FIN
CAN
GBR
BEL
FRA SGP
ISR JPN
DEU
ITA TWN
ESP
KWT
ARE NZL
20000
GRC
SVN KOR
PRT CZE
HUN
EST SVK
TTO SAU
POL LVA
ARG
HRV
10000
BWA
ZAF RUSMYSCHL
MEX
CRI URY
BGRTHA ROM
IRN BLRTUR
DOM PAN TUN
BRA
KAZ
COL
VEN
BLZNAM CHN
MKD UKR
PERDZA JOR
LBN
SLV PHL
ECUNICGTM PRY
MARJAMLKA
IDN EGY
IND
HND VNM
SDNKHM
BOLBGD
CMR
ZWE
SEN
NPL
GHA
PAKMDA
UZBMNG
CAFZMB
YEMMLIKEN
MOZ
NGA
TZA
0
-20 -10 0 10 20 30
Country's Score on the Competitiveness Index
The scatter shows the correlation between a country’s score on the Competitiveness Index
and its actual per capita income at purchasing power parity. A few countries are notably
wealthier than the Index would predict, especially Norway (NOR), Saudi Arabia (SAU) and
Trinidad and Tobago (TTO). Many of the differences are driven by commodity exports, which
enter the Index as a negative influence on long-term growth, but have enhanced income in
the current high-oil-price environment. Another major driver of differences (especially for
Norway) is entrepreneurship. While there is a significant correlation between income growth
and entrepreneurship indicators in wealthy countries, there are a few countries with low
entrepreneurship scores that have nonetheless experienced rapid income growth. There are
also a few countries that are less wealthy than the Index would predict. Many of these
differences can be ascribed to the difficulty of creating quantitative measures of human capital
(see the review of this indicator in the following section).
PAGE 18 OF 105
FIGURE 1.2 SCATTERPLOT OF COUNTRY SCORES ON THE LEGATUM INDEX OF
COMPARATIVE LIVEABILITY AGAINST AVERAGE SUBJECTIVE WELLBEING
8
DNK
FIN
CHE
National Average of Subjective Wellbeing
NZL NLD NOR
CANSWE
USA
CRI BELAUS
SAU ESP IRL
ISR AUT
7
VEN FRA GBR

ARE
ITA SGP
MEX
BLZ BRA
PANCZE
JPN
DEU
GRC
JAM ARG
COLTWN MYS
KWT
6
GTM JOR CHLTTO SVN

DZA HRV THA
POLURY
BLR
KAZ KOR
PAKBOLEGY SLV PRT HKG
VNM EST
TUN
IRN SVK
UZB HND
IND ROM TUR DOM
RUS LBN HUN ZAF
MAR
MDAUKR GHA ECU IDN PER
PRY CHN
5
NGA PHLNAM
MOZ
NPL LVA BWA
MNGSDN
SEN
YEM BGD NICMKD
ZMB
CAF LKA
KEN
MLI CMR
TZA
4
KHMBGR
ZWE
3
-20 -10 0 10 20
Country's Score on the Liveability Index
The scatter shows the correlation between a country’s score on the Liveability side of the
Prosperity Index and average self-reported life satisfaction of individuals on a national sample
survey, the Gallup World Poll. A few countries are notably less happy than the Index would
predict: Botswana (BWA), Portugal (PRT) and Hong Kong (HKG). The reasons for these
differences are not immediately apparent, although all three of these countries are notable for
having achieved extremely rapid increases in income. A few other countries, such as
Venezuela (VEN) and Jamaica (JAM), are happier than the Index would predict.
THE PROSPERITY INDEX REPORT

Following this chapter are several others:
Chapter 2 introduces the research methodology used to compile the Index and some key
findings of this analysis.
Chapter 3 presents an analysis by David Audretsch of the relationship between
entrepreneurship and economic growth.
Chapter 4 presents an assessment by Arthur Brooks of the link between charity and
happiness.
Chapter 5 presents an exploration by Paolo Verme of the importance of freedom of choice to
life satisfaction.
Chapter 6 presents country profiles for the 104 countries in the Index.
2
See Offer, Avner.2006. “Economic Welfare Measurement and Human Wellbeing”. Chapter 2
(pp 15-39) in The Challenge of Affluence: Self-Control and Wellbeing in the United States and
Britain Since 1950. Oxford: Oxford University Press.
3
Sen, Amartya. 1985. Commodities and Capabilities. Oxford: Oxford University Press.
PAGE 19 OF 105
4
See Kahneman, D. and A. Tversky. 1979. “Prospect theory: An analysis of decisions under
risk”. Econometrica 47: 313-327.
5
Common survey questions are “How happy are you these days?”, “How satisfied are you
with your life overall?” or “Please imagine a ladder with steps numbered from zero at the
bottom to ten at the top. Suppose we say that the top of the ladder represents the best
possible life for you and the bottom of the ladder represents the worst possible life for you. On
which step of the ladder would you say you personally feel you stand at this time?”.
6
Cognitive appraisals tend to emphasise the difference between how the person feels at the
beginning of an experience and how they feel at the end. For example, individuals tend to
think that a bad experience which ends well was less unpleasant than an equally bad
experience during which the good part came in the middle (a bias that can be demonstrated
by comparing people’s retrospective evaluations of medical procedures). The Prosperity
Index is based on these cognitive assessments of life satisfaction. It is a matter of debate as
to what ought to be maximised: how happy people are, or how happy they think they are
(loosely speaking). For instance, focusing on cognitive appraisals, which are based on
reflection after-the-fact, may make sense because these appraisals are more likely to drive
future behaviour when determining whether to undertake an activity again.
7
Heady, Bruce and Alexander Wearing. 1991. “Subjective Wellbeing: A Stocks and Flows
Framework”. In Subjective Wellbeing: An Interdisciplinary Perspective, ed. Fritz Strack,
Michael Argyle and Norbert Scheewarz: 7-26. Oxford: Pergamon Press.
8
See Clark, Andrew E., Ed Diener, Yannis Georgellis and Richard E. Lucas. December 2006.
“Lags and Leads in Life Satisfaction: A Test of the Baseline Hypothesis”. Discussion Paper
Series IZA DP 2526, Bonn: Institute for the Study of Labour (IZA).
9
For a survey of evidence on the correlation of measures of subjective wellbeing with
physical responses, see Frey, Bruno S. and Alois Stutzer. 2002. Happiness and Economics.
Princeton: Princeton University Press.
10
Helliwell, John F. 2004. “Wellbeing and Social Capital: Does Suicide Pose a Puzzle?”.
National Bureau of Economics Working Paper W10896.
11
The validity of subjective assessments has been supported by its demonstrated correlation
with objective outcomes in other fields as well. Compare Idler, Ellen L. and Yael Benyamini.
March 1997. “Self-Rated Health and Mortality: A Review of Twenty-Seven Community
Studies”. Journal of Health and Social Behavior, 38(1) :21-37.
12
Easterlin, Richard. 2001. “Income and Happiness: Towards a Unified Theory “. The
Economic Journal 111 (473): 465-484.
13
Di Tella, Rafael, Robert J. MacCulloch and Andrew J. Oswald. November 2003. “The
Macroeconomics of Happiness”. The Review of Economics and Statistics 85(4): 809-827.
14
Inglehart, Ronald. 1977. The Silent Revolution: Changing Values and Political Styles
Among Western Publics. Princeton: Princeton University Press.
PAGE 20 OF 105
15
See for instance the Happiness and Public Policy Conference,
18-19 July 2007, Bangkok. http://www.ppdoconference.org/about_ppdo_conference.php
as well as
“National Prosperity Index and Societal peace: National Development Through Integrative
Growth”. Address of the President of India at the Annual Convocation of the Panjab
University, Chandigarh, 07 March 2007.
http://admser.chd.nic.in/uploadfiles/press/pressnote/pr1160.pdf
16
OECD, “2nd World Forum on “Measuring and Fostering the Progress of Societies” Istanbul,
27-30 June 2007. http://www.oecd.org/dataoecd/24/58/39637799.pdf.
See also “Measuring Progress, True Wealth, and the Wellbeing of Nations”. International
Conference, 19-20 November 2007, Brussels. http://www.beyond-gdp.eu/
PAGE 21 OF 105
2. Methodology
2.1 How We Built the Index

The indicators used to construct the Legatum Prosperity Index show an empirical link with
either long-term economic growth or average national life satisfaction.17 Indicators that did not
show such a link were, in general, not included in the Index. The selection of indicators that
were tested was based in large part on existing research into factors that drive national
prosperity, both in terms of material wealth and subjective wellbeing. A full review of this
research appears in sections 2.2 and 2.3.
This chapter explains some of the values and assumptions behind the Prosperity Index. It
describes the construction of the Index, the weighting schemes applied, and an overview of
the particular indicators that were included as key drivers or restrainers of prosperity.
COMBINING COMPETITIVENESS AND LIVEABILITY

The two halves of the Prosperity Index, Economic Competitiveness and Comparative
Liveability, are evaluated separately and then weighted equally.18
While the Economic Competitiveness section of the Index is based on the traditional criteria of
economic development, the Comparative Liveability section reflects the view that human
flourishing is also based on the consideration of non-material goods. The separation of the
two sides enables the reader to compare the evaluation of a particular country according to
the traditional paradigm (Economic Competitiveness score), from the perspective of human
development (Comparative Liveability score) and a combined view -– the overall Index score.
The Economic Competitiveness section of the Index focuses on prosperity as it has
traditionally been measured, as economic growth and wealth accumulation. For this reason,
the Competitiveness pillar of the Index has much in common with many other indices of
growth competitiveness, recognising that a functioning market economy is indispensable for a
country’s economic development, although we hope the Index contributes to the ongoing
debate concerning drivers of economic growth rather than economic outcomes alone.
The Comparative Liveability side of the Index is intended as an assessment of the wellbeing
equivalent of competitiveness -- that is, as competitiveness is to growth, so liveability is to
19
wellbeing.
The combination of Competitiveness and Liveability produces a ranking of the drivers of
national prosperity.
CONSIDERING DIFFERENT LEVELS OF DEVELOPMENT

While focussing on determinants of prosperity that appear to be universal regardless of
national origin, the Index does take account of the fact that countries are not homogenous
and that there are dynamics inherent to different levels of economic development. Hence the
Index uses a dynamic weighting scheme. This means, for instance, that the relative
importance of capital, trade openness or entrepreneurship may change as countries reach
higher levels of national wealth.
Accordingly, the criteria used to assess the performance of a particular country will not remain
static but will change with rising (or falling) income levels. This coincides with some intuitive
notions -- for instance, a major economic downturn might change the main concerns people
have, and lead individuals to re-consider national policy priorities.
In technical terms, the first step in determining the importance of factors in the Index is to
group countries into sub-samples of similar GDP levels and derive factor weights via
regression analysis. Our method of ‘locally weighted scatterplot smoothing’ (LOWESS) does
not require specifying a global function across all income levels.
Instead, at each level of GDP per capita, a least squares regression of the indicator on the
outcome variable is run for a band of observations around the point, with more weight given to
observations closer to the point (‘locally weighted’), resulting in a LOWESS curve. To illustrate
PAGE 22 OF 105
this concept, a traditional least squares regression analysis of the relationship between
governance on growth is shown in Figure 2.1. A locally weighted analysis of this relationship
is shown in Figure 2.2.
In the Prosperity Index, the impact of governance on growth is linked to a third variable, GDP
levels, as shown in Figures 2.3 and 2.4 (hence these graphs have three dimensions).20 The
regression coefficient shifts as a country’s income changes.
FIGURE 2.1 ILLUSTRATION OF THE RELATIONSHIP BETWEEN GOVERNMENT

EFFECTIVENESS AND ECONOMIC GROWTH, AS ASSESSED BY A STANDARD LINEAR
REGRESSION
This chart illustrates a basic linear regression of per capita GDP growth against (normalised)
government effectiveness scores and controls (a convergence term, annualised growth in
capital stock per worker, and average years of secondary education) for the whole sample. If
we used this regression coefficient to set the weight for government effectiveness in the
Index, the weight of government effectiveness would be the same in both rich and poor
countries. Because the slope of the line is so flat, the weight would be quite low indeed.
PAGE 23 OF 105
FIGURE 2.2 ILLUSTRATION OF THE RELATIONSHIP BETWEEN GOVERNMENT
EFFECTIVENESS AND ECONOMIC GROWTH, AS ASSESSED BY A LOWESS
REGRESSION
This chart by contrast illustrates a LOWESS regression of per capita GDP growth against
(normalised) government effectiveness scores and controls (the output gap, annualised
growth in capital per worker, and average secondary education). The smoothed line is
constructed by fitting separate straight lines for each level of government effectiveness, each
time giving observations close to that score more weight in the regression than those further
away. A moving band of observations with a bandwidth of 30% of the sample is used to
derive the LOWESS curve. The steep slope at low levels of effectiveness and flat slope at
high levels of effectiveness mean that improvements on this particular indicator of governance
will benefit weakly-governed countries more than countries that are already strongly-
governed.21
PAGE 24 OF 105
FIGURE 2.3 THE RELATIONSHIP BETWEEN GOVERNMENT EFFECTIVENESS AND
ECONOMIC GROWTH, VARYING BY INCOME
Predicted per capita GDP growth as a function of (normalised) government effectiveness

score and per capita GDP (controlling for the output gap, capital per worker, and average
secondary education), demonstrating the derivation of the Prosperity Index weights. At each
level of per capita GDP, growth is predicted as a linear function of government effectiveness,
with the slope of the function allowed to vary with GDP. In poor countries, government
effectiveness and growth are highly correlated. However, this correlation abates as GDP per
capita increases.
FIGURE 2.4 THE RELATIONSHIP BETWEEN GOVERNMENT EFFECTIVENESS AND

ECONOMIC GROWTH, SHOWING SELECTED COUNTRIES
PAGE 25 OF 105
Scatter plot of per capita GDP growth against government effectiveness and per capita GDP,
with fitted LOWESS surface. At each level of GDP, we fit a linear regression of growth on
government effectiveness, giving countries close to that level of GDP (which are shaded
similarly on the graph) more weight than those further away. For example, we obtain a
significant positive relationship between growth and government effectiveness for Zambia
(with a per capita GDP of $850), represented by the line at the near edge of the LOWESS
surface. On the other hand, there is only a weak relationship between growth and government
effectiveness for Norway (with a per capita GDP around $35,500), as shown by the line at the
far edge of the LOWESS surface. Accordingly, the Prosperity Index weighting posits that
Zambia could benefit more than Norway from better governance.
MAKING THE BIGGEST DIFFERENCE

The Prosperity Index accounts for the fact that the importance of factors driving prosperity
may change with income; it also makes an initial assessment of factors’ importance relative to
each other.22 In practical terms, the Index attempts to show the prosperity indicators where
policymakers (and citizens) can potentially make the biggest difference, mindful that decision-
making often requires managing limited resources and making necessary trade-offs.
Because of this, the second step in determining the importance of factors in the Index is to set
the weights relative to each other. We do this by constraining the weights to sum to one.
Since the regression coefficients of Index factors change with income, they also change
relative to each other. For instance, in absolute terms, the regression coefficient for
satisfaction with freedom of choice increases by about one-third over the whole income
spectrum (suggesting that the importance of freedom of choice increases by about that
amount as countries become richer). But, when compared to the changing weights of all the
factors in the Prosperity Index, the relative importance of freedom of choice increases twenty-
fold.
This is important for the consideration of tradeoffs. To the extent that a country must make a
choice between pursuing one area of prosperity or another, and cannot choose both, relative
importance matters. The Index suggests that satisfaction with freedom of choice is far more
important in Norway (with a per capita income of nearly 72,000 USD in purchasing power
terms) than in Liberia (with an income of 170 USD per head). This is mainly because the
importance of raising incomes in Liberia is so overwhelming, since poverty leads to
malnutrition and ill health (which have profound and immediate negative impacts on life
satisfaction).
Figure 2.5 and Figure 2.7 in the sections introducing the Economic Competitiveness Index
and the Comparative Liveability Index illustrate the relative importance of each of the Index
indicators and how relative weights on these indicators change with increasing income.
WHY USE A DYNAMIC WEIGHTING SCHEME?

The production of any index must navigate the balance and trade-offs between complexity
and accessibility. In the case of the Prosperity Index, the fact that so many different factors
account for economic growth and subjective wellbeing supports using a more complex model.
Furthermore, these factors must be combined in complicated ways. For example, most
studies on subjective wellbeing reinforce the finding that people begin to place greater value
on non-material goods as personal incomes rise. Similarly, countries at different stages of
economic development have diverging needs when it comes to prioritising policies and policy
targets. The economic structure of developing countries tends to differ from early
industrialisers, and so do their paths to growth.23
Additionally, a central purpose of the Index is to support further research into the drivers of
material wealth and particularly subjective wellbeing. As the Index is partially based on this
comparatively recent field of research, communicating insights from empirical analysis of the
relative importance of wellbeing correlates has particular value.
PAGE 26 OF 105
2.2 Building the Economic Competitiveness Index
AN APPROACH BASED ON GROWTH MODELS

There are two different theoretical frameworks dominating the derivation of economic growth
equations that are used for statistical research: the neoclassical growth model and the
24
endogenous growth model. The factors included in the Economic Competitiveness Index
are drawn from the empirical academic literature on these models.
The neoclassical model implies that economies further away from their steady states will grow
faster. In order to obtain meaningful results, however, most specifications of these models (for
the purposes of statistical testing) control for variables that affect the long-run equilibrium of
the economy, such as the savings rate, openness to trade, the rule of law, and human capital
stock.25
Endogenous growth models imply that knowledge accumulation acts as a production input
with increasing marginal returns. Accordingly, the speed of income growth is endogenously
determined by the country’s ability to absorb new knowledge from technologically more
advanced countries, or, in the case of the most advanced economies, the ability to foster
innovation. Countries’ ‘absorptive capability’ in turn is affected by environmental variables,
which reflect theoretical assumptions on the nature of technological diffusion. For instance,
human capital, openness and R&D expenditures are variables that are hypothesised to
influence technological catch-up.26
The Economic Competitiveness Index evaluates how well countries perform in areas
essential to long-term economic growth. For the purposes of presentation, it assesses
countries along three dimensions: investing productively, commercialising new ideas, and
avoiding dependency.
Before the endogenous growth theory introduced human capital as a main determinant of
material wealth accumulation, growth-oriented policies traditionally focussed on capital
investments and advances in labour productivity. Innovation, research and high-skilled labour,
together with the entrepreneurial capacity that enables commercialisation of new ideas, have
since been recognised as essential to economic growth in knowledge-based economies.27 On
the other side of the income spectrum, dependency on commodity exports -- the ‘natural
resource curse’ -- and the ambivalent effects of foreign aid have been central to the
discussion of development policies.28
We created our own cross-country historical data sets to test and weight the factors
suggested by this literature as determinants of long-term economic growth. We included each
candidate factor in a regression including a convergence term, growth in capital per worker,
and growth in average years of secondary education per worker, with growth in GDP per
worker as the dependent variable. For candidate factors that achieved significance in these
regressions, weights were assigned using the LOWESS method described above.
Furthermore, factors were grouped into areas such as good governance, economic openness
or dependence, summing their weights together.
The candidate factors for the Economic Competitiveness Index were tested in regressions on
three separate datasets: medium-term and long-term data for both rich and poor countries,
and a panel data set for industrialised countries. The long-term dataset is the core dataset.
The medium-term dataset was used for factors for which historical data are unavailable (such
as the World Bank Governance Indicators). The panel data set was used for factors for which
historical data are only available for very few countries (such as price levels).29
PAGE 27 OF 105
FIGURE 2.5. WEIGHTS FOR THE COMPETITIVENESS INDEX FACTORS AS ASSIGNED
BY LOWESS REGRESSSION
100%
Dependence
Entrepreneurship
Commercialisng Innovation
80%
Economic Openness
Importance for Material Wealth
60%
Better Education
Competitive Markets
40%
Good Governance
20%
Invested Capital
0%
0
1000
2000
3000
4000
5000
6000
7000
8000
9000
10000
11000
12000
13000
14000
15000
16000
17000
18000
19000
20000
21000
22000
23000
24000
25000
26000
27000
28000
29000
30000
31000
32000
33000
34000
35000
36000
Income (In'tl USD)
Widths of bands represent percentage weights as components of a total Economic

Competitiveness Index score. The three main categories in the Index are Investing
Productively (shown in shades of blue, declining in weight as countries become wealthier),
Commercialising New Ideas (shown in shades of green, rising in weight as countries become
wealthier), and Avoiding Dependence (shown in red, declining in weight as countries become
wealthier).
The factors included in the Economic Competitiveness Index, along with their approximate
weights in the Index, are reviewed below.
INVESTING PRODUCTIVELY
Capital investment
Indicator Source Approximate Weight (% of
Economic
Competitiveness Score)
Capital stock per worker Own estimation using a 10% at the lower end of the
perpetual inventory method income scale rising to 20% at
the upper end
Investment in a country’s physical capital stock, such as factories and equipment, is central to
long-term economic growth. In addition to directly expanding the size of an economy,
increased capital investment may generate higher long-term rates of growth, because
investment brings new technology into use, although this is controversial. The argument is
made most strongly in respect to investment in equipment, at least in developing countries.
Statistical evidence of a link between capital and growth is not hard to find; however, there is
substantial debate over whether this relationship is indeed causal. While investment rates are
an obvious statistical difference between low-growth Africa and high-growth Asia, there are
many countries with identical investment rates but very different growth rates.
Some estimates indicate that fixed capital stock may account for up to 80 percent of the
variation in income across countries (controlling for education stocks). While such research
findings -- which imply a very small role for technology differences -- are contentious,
PAGE 28 OF 105
investment in physical capital is widely accepted as being fundamental to medium-term
growth, if leaving a substantial role for technology and policies.30
The measures of physical capital stock used in the Index are estimated following standard
techniques, although there are limitations on data quality in some cases, such as post-
communist countries where the historical capital stock is difficult to value. While some
research suggests that capital accumulation becomes less important as countries become
richer, our analysis finds this factor to remain of roughly equal importance across the income
spectrum.31
Governance
Economic
Government effectiveness World Bank Governance 16% at the lower end of the
Indicators income scale falling to 2% at
the upper end
Regulatory quality World Bank Governance 5% at the lower end of the
Indicators income scale rising to 10% at
the upper end
Both new capital investments and new product developments, which are central to the growth
process, are very likely to be inhibited when there is uncertainty about the rule of law and
about property rights (including copyright and patent protection), when there is a tendency
towards arbitrary policy reversals; and where corruption -– in all its many manifestations -– is
rife.
In some extreme instances such as during post-communist transitions, these impacts have
been observed directly. In these cases an institutional vacuum clearly resulted in a collapse in
output (in Russia, for instance, private property rights were introduced, but not adequately
enforced, contributing to a dramatic redistribution of the country’s wealth, and the flight of a
great deal of Russian capital offshore).
Statistical relationships are also easy to find. Institutional quality, measured by World Bank
Governance Indicators, has been found to potentially have a larger impact on long-run growth
than geography or trade,32 and rates of economic growth have been shown to be highly
conditional on regulatory quality.33
The Prosperity Index indicates that improving governance has less of an effect on growth as
countries develop.34 More specifically, government effectiveness -- that is, the quality of public
services, the capacity of the civil service and its independence from political pressures, as
well as the quality of policy formulation -- appears particularly important for boosting growth in
poor countries. Regulatory quality -- that is, the ability of the government to provide sound
policies and regulations that enable and promote private sector development -- seems to
35
have a larger impact on economic growth in high-income countries.
PAGE 29 OF 105
Competition
Economic
The residual from a IMF 16% at the lower end of the
regression of the PPP to income scale falling to 2% at
exchange rate ratio on GDP the upper end
per capita
Ratio of the Consumer Price World Development 5% at the lower end of the
Index to the Wholesale Price Indicators income scale rising to 10% at
Index the upper end
Broadly, research on competition suggests that domestic taxation of industry, import tariffs, or
competition policy more generally, can lead to uncompetitive domestic markets with adverse
effects on growth.36 Specifically, Switzerland, despite having lagged in income growth for
more than a decade, scores well on most correlates of growth performance.37 OECD research
suggests that this anomaly can be explained by a lack of competitiveness in Swiss markets.
While the level of competition is difficult to measure in statistical terms, we did find significant
correlations for the price differential variables suggested by the OECD as an indicator of
reasons underlying Switzerland’s slow growth. There is also some research that suggests that
deviations from purchasing power have negative economic effects.38
Within the Prosperity Index, the PPP (Purchasing Power Parity) to market exchange rate ratio
has a strong, significant relationship with growth in advanced economies, while low consumer
price to wholesale price index ratios are important for low and middle-income economies.
PAGE 30 OF 105
FIGURE 2.6. INCOME GROWTH FOR SWITZERLAND AND OTHER RICH COUNTRIES,
$45,000
Over the period,

$40,000 Switzerland (red line)
falls behind the
leaders (Norway &
US, black lines) to
$35,000
join the main group
(Austria, Canada,
$30,000
Denmark France
$25,000
$20,000
$15,000
$10,000
$5,000
1980-2005
COMMERCIALISING NEW IDEAS (OR INNOVATION AS PER FIGURE)

Economic openness
Economic
Trade Freedom Index Heritage Foundation 2% at the lower end of the
income scale rising to 4% at
the upper end
Imports + exports + FDI as a World Development 2% at the lower end of the
proportion of GDP Indicators and UNCTAD income scale rising to 4% at
the upper end
Number of regional trade WTO 3% at the lower end of the
agreements notified to the income scale falling to 0% at
WTO the upper end
Openness to trade increases the availability and reduces the cost of developing or acquiring
new and more productive goods and technologies that sustain the growth impetus. Integration
with world markets and subsequent specialisation as a result of international trade leads to
increasing returns on investment and technology transfer. 39
PAGE 31 OF 105
While there is considerable controversy surrounding statistical research regarding the benefit
of trade openness, even the most challenging evidence tends to suggest that the positive
effect of openness may be conditional on other factors.40 At the individual case level, the
prima facie evidence for a strong, significant relationship between trade openness and growth
is almost overwhelming. This includes the extended growth surges enjoyed by countries that
joined the Common Market/European Community.
Foreign direct investment (FDI) has been shown to boost growth, both by directly increasing
investment in physical and human capital, and as a mechanism for technology transfer.
Evidence of this positive impact is strong, especially in some of the transition countries, where
much of the inherited capital stock was inefficient and domestic savings rates were low. More
generally, there is evidence that, given a minimum human capital stock, FDI in developing
countries induces higher growth than domestic investments.41
However, like trade openness, this impact may vary. The scale of FDI inflows to poor
countries has been smaller than anticipated, and -– as in Africa -- much FDI to developing
countries has been concentrated in the natural resource sectors, where its impacts on
productivity and hence long-term growth are limited.
The Economic Competitiveness Index includes three openness indicators: an assessment of
trade policies produced by the Heritage Foundation, the number of regional trade agreements
a country has signed,42 and international trade and FDI as a share of domestic production.
Each of the openness indicators shows a significant correlation with per capita income growth
in our tests. We have tested and presented these indicators without an adjustment for market
size. Hence, countries with large domestic economies may wish to focus less on this
indicator.
Education
Economic
Average years of secondary Own estimation 13% at the lower end of the
education per worker income scale rising to 18% at
the upper end
The potential routes for ‘more’ education to impact economic growth are twofold. Firstly, the
greater the number of educated people, the greater the productive capacity of the economy;
and secondly, the more educated the workforce, the greater the capacity of individuals to
build on the ideas of others and, hence, the greater the scope and pace of technological
innovation.
Intuitively, a country’s stock of human capital is augmented by spending (investment) in
education, training and healthcare, along with a range of other improvements in social and
living conditions that make it easier for people to realise their productive potential. However,
capturing these effects empirically at the macroeconomic level has proven challenging, due to
the difficulty of valuing human capital in statistical measures.43 Research evidence is at least
suggestive of the existence of the expected effects, both that human capital facilitates
technology diffusion and innovation, and that increases in human capital directly increase the
productivity of labour.44 However, statistical measures of human capital, whether based on
health or education levels, remain limited in their value at the macroeconomic level.
The main human capital measure in the Prosperity Index is average years of secondary
education per worker, estimated based on enrolment, population size, and death probabilities.
The number of researchers in R&D (listed under innovation, below) also provides an
alternative human capital indicator.
PAGE 32 OF 105
Innovation
Economic
Natural log of 1 plus high World Development 0% at the lower end of the
technology exports as a Indicators, based on UN income scale rising to 6% at
percentage of GDP ComTrade Data the upper end
Natural log of researchers World Bank 8% at the lower end of the
employed in R&D per million income scale rising to 10% at
population the upper end
Natural log of patent World Intellectual Property 6% at the lower end of the
applications filed by office Organization (WIPO) income scale rising to 8% at
the upper end
Investments in research and innovation increase countries’ relative total factor productivity
and hence should be significant drivers of growth. R&D also creates technological ‘spillover’
effects. That is, new innovations are not only more productive in themselves; they also raise
the productivity of subsequent innovators, enabling innovative economies to surge ahead of
other economies.45
The evidence from statistical analysis on the economy-wide benefits of R&D is suggestive
rather than compelling. The microeconomic evidence of high rates of return to firms engaging
in R&D is strong, although there are significant measurement difficulties to be overcome.46
The indicators in the Prosperity Index are intended to reflect the process of the absorption of
innovation, rather than spending on innovation itself. The most direct measure of innovation in
the Index is patents.47 A related measure is researchers in research and development
positions as a share of the total workforce, which could also serve as an alternative indicator
for highly skilled human capital. And finally, tradable high-technology products create growth
partly by taking a high value on international markets, and partly because their trade
additionally spurs growth on the importing side via knowledge transfer (so arguably, again,
high-quality human capital is the actual driver of faster growth).48 This last indicator is less
relevant for countries with large domestic economies, as it is not adjusted for market size.
Entrepreneurship
Economic
Natural log of 1 plus the cost World Bank Doing Business 0.1% at the lower end of the
of business start-up Indicators income scale falling to 0% at
procedures as a percentage the upper end
of GNI per capita
Business owners as a COMPENDIA -- Van Stel, 0% at the lower end of the
percentage of the labour 2005 income scale rising to 8% at
force the upper end
Entrepreneurship (as business ownership49) is widespread in poor countries. However, as this

activity is concentrated in the informal sector, it may have little discernable impact on
recorded growth. In the poorest countries, the challenge is the formalisation and growth of
businesses -- not to increase the number of entrepreneurs as such, but to increase the
number of entrepreneurs that prosper.50
It is easy to find statistical evidence of the link between economic growth and the business
environment conditions to which smaller businesses are particularly vulnerable. Low costs of
PAGE 33 OF 105
doing business foster growth by facilitating commercial transactions for businesses (of all
sizes). There is evidence that financial liberalisation, increasing the ability of growing
businesses to obtain capital, raises growth at least in the short-term. 51
In rich countries, the role of entrepreneurship is subject of some debate.52 Some theories
posit a crucial role for entrepreneurship as the driving force behind the commercialisation of
innovation (for a full explanation, see Chapter 3: Entrepreneurship and Economic Growth).
These theories suggest that for the richest countries, increasing entrepreneurship would be
crucial.
In the Prosperity Index, the business environment conditions that constrain the growth of
smaller businesses are represented by the cost of starting a business (including the costs of
any licenses required, as well as the time-cost of bureaucratic procedures), a factor that has a
positive weight only in low-income economies. In developed countries, it is the rate of
business ownership that significantly correlates with growth differentials.
AVOIDING DEPENDENCY
Commodity exports
Economic
Natural resource exports as Historical data from Sachs 0.5% at the lower end of the
a percentage of GDP and Warner, 1997. Current income scale falling to 0% at
data from World the upper end
Development Indicators
The negative impact of commodity exports on growth may arise partly due to economic
distortions -- for example, inflows of funds from oil exports can cause exchange rate
appreciation that undermines the competitiveness of other economic sectors. It is also
possible that the long-term secular decline in terms of trade over recent decades adversely
affected long-run growth.
Some have argued that the real source of the problem is not natural resource exports per se,
but excessive government regulation and other policy-related rigidities that prevent private
sector businesses from responding efficiently to trade shocks. Another interpretation is that
mineral rents encourage distributional struggles that result in political, social and economic
instabilities, which, in turn, undermine growth.
Irrespective of the reason, research evidences a significant, adverse impact on growth. The
‘natural resource curse’ has become common currency in policy circles to explain the lack of
catching-up among a wide range of South American and African economies,53 although the
empirical evidence has not established clearly which effect is to blame.54
The Prosperity Index captures the ‘resource curse’ via the indicator of commodity exports as
share of domestic production.
Foreign aid
Economic
Natural log of 1 plus foreign Historical data from Sachs 0.1% at the lower end of the
aid as a percentage of GDP and Warner, 1997. Current income scale falling to 0% at
data from World the upper end
Development Indicators
PAGE 34 OF 105
One of the key objectives of foreign aid is to enable the recipient country to advance its
productive potential by alleviating the shortage of capital (i.e. to increase investment).
However, whether foreign aid actually assists, inhibits, or has no effect on growth has been
the subject of a long-running theoretical and empirical debate. This is not least because, as in
many other cases, cause and effect are difficult to establish, since recipient countries may be
the slowest-growing countries. Empirical findings on the impact of aid on developing
economies have proven controversial and sensitive to the econometric techniques employed.
Most of the prominent studies in support of positive and significant growth effects appear to
be non-robust. These problems extend to studies finding beneficial effects of aid to be
conditional on good fiscal, monetary and trade policy; as well as to studies that find negative
55
impacts of aid on growth.
In the Prosperity Index regressions, foreign aid as a share of GDP correlated negatively with
long-term income growth over a 30-year period and is weighted accordingly.
2.3 Building the Comparative Liveability Index
AN APPROACH BASED ON CROSS-NATIONAL ANALYSIS

Cross-national comparisons reveal significant differences in the average levels of subjective
wellbeing in different countries. Beyond personality and demographic aspects, there are
economic, contextual and institutional factors at the societal level that appear to impact
individual wellbeing.
There is a small but growing literature on the determinants of the differences in wellbeing
among nations. We created our own cross-country historical data set to test and weight the
factors suggested by this literature, and by our own research, as determinants of life
satisfaction differentials.
To select the factors that would appear in the Comparative Liveability Index, we included
each candidate factor in a regression controlling for average income per capita, with average
life satisfaction as the dependent variable. For candidate factors that achieved significance in
these regressions, weights were assigned using the LOWESS method described above.
Again, factors were grouped into areas such as climate, equality of opportunity or community
life, summing their weights together.
The factors in the Comparative Liveability Index are presented in four categories: sources of
misery, freedom and opportunity, social supports and environment for wellbeing.
The ‘sources of misery’ are those factors with which policymakers probably are most familiar.
Reducing poverty and unemployment, as well as the need to provide voters with appropriate
health care are common items on the political agenda. Income, a job and good health are
essential to individuals’ satisfaction with their life, and often feature on political platforms in
response to electoral demands.
Also familiar are requests for ‘freedom and opportunity’, albeit in a much broader sense.
Personal and political freedom and meritocracy constitute characteristics of prospering
societies.
The necessity of building ‘social supports’ has regained salience in recent political debate,
which recognises the importance of social capital, the dangers of demographic decline and
the significance of religious faith in the domestic and international arena. While these issue-
areas have wider economic and political implications, their significance for individuals’ life
satisfaction invites policymakers to reconsider these issues from a new angle –- with the
benefit of new data yielding new insights.
The ‘environment for wellbeing’ is also assuming a larger role in political discourse. Protection
of the natural environment and the length of working weeks are electoral issues by now well-
known to many governments in advanced economies.
PAGE 35 OF 105
WHAT DOES COMPARATIVE LIVEABILITY MEAN IN PRACTICE?
While the Comparative Liveability Index contains many factors driven by individual choice, the
weightings of the Index factors, as shown in Figures 2.7 and 2.8, reflect a comparative
national perspective.
Based on the data available, for an individual seeking to raise his or her life satisfaction, a
better family life is almost certainly more important than increases in income in rich and poor
countries alike (contrary to what the weights shown in Figure 2.7 would suggest). Moreover,
family life matters at least as much -- perhaps even more -- for individual life satisfaction in
rich countries, as compared to poor countries (in contrast to Figure 2.8, which shows the
importance of family life declining as countries become wealthier).
Why, then, does the Comparative Liveability Index use the weights it does? In short, the Index
weights are based on the variability of indicators between nations, not between individuals. In
rich countries, people’s family lives are, on average, relatively good. In developing countries,
by contrast, family life indicators are hugely variable. For instance, the Gallup World Poll finds
that only 59% of Bangladeshis say they have someone to rely on in times of trouble,
compared to 95% of Venezuelans. In wealthy European countries, by contrast, there is little
variation: the figure is uniformly above 90%.
This suggests that when Western European policymakers, and Western European voters,
consider the comparative liveability of their country -- the liveability of their country as
compared to other rich countries -- the quality of family life is not such an important
differentiating factor. In countries at such high levels of income, the quality of family life does
not appear to be powerfully influenced by factors that vary at the national level. By contrast, in
poorer countries, national differences appear to have a large impact on family life. For
instance, it appears that some kinds of national differences -- perhaps differences in law,
culture, migration patterns, or economic conditions -- leave nearly eight times as many
Bangladeshis as Venezuelans without someone to rely on.
It is important to note that foundational social capital factors such as family, friends, faith, and
health, all of which are strong determinants of human happiness, are generated and
experienced by individuals, not entire countries. In other words, it is individual people who are
happy, not nations. However, since the Prosperity Index assesses prosperity at the national
level, it uses national averages of these social capital indicators. While these national
averages can reveal interesting comparisons between countries, they do not address the
relative salience of social capital factors within countries. Substantial research has
demonstrated that for populations within wealthier nations, factors such as family life,
friendship, religious engagement, and health are much stronger determinants of individual
happiness than income.
There remains a great deal that is unknown about Comparative Liveability, because it is a
new field of study. Some of the subjective social indicators in the Index may prove to be
difficult to move via policy changes -- it may well be easier to double incomes in an already-
rich country than it is to increase people’s satisfaction with air quality by one percent.
Conversely, some subjective social indicators may well be so important to individuals that,
even though there is little variance in these indicators between countries, these will come to
be seen as the most crucial policy targets. These kinds of distinctions await further research.
Policymakers and citizens should take the weights presented in this year’s Prosperity Index
weights as an initial assessment of countries’ Comparative Liveability, and expect that this will
be enhanced in years to come.
PAGE 36 OF 105
FIGURE 2.7. WEIGHTS FOR THE LIVEABILITY INDEX FACTORS AS ASSIGNED BY
LOWESS REGRESSION, WITH INCOME INCLUDED
100%
Religious Life
Community Life
80% Family Life

Health
Leisure
Importance for Life Satisfaction
Environment
Climate
60%
Governance
40%
Equality of opportunity
Freedom of choice
20% Income
0%
10500
11800
13100
14400
15700
17000
18300
19600
20900
22200
23500
24800
26100
27400
28700
30000
31300
32600
33900
35200
36500
37800
39100
40400
41700
43000
44300
45600
46900
48200
49500
50800
52100
53400
54700
4000
5300
6600
7900
9200
Income (In'tl USD)
Widths of bands represent percentage weights as components of a total Comparative

Liveability Index score. The four main categories in the Index are Freedom and Opportunity
(shown in shades of blue, remaining roughly constant in weight), Environment for Wellbeing
(shown in shades of green, rising in weight as countries become wealthier), Sources of
Misery (with income falling in weight and health rising in weight), and Social Supports (shown
in shades of orange, declining somewhat as countries become wealthier). Comparative
Liveability Index weights are reflected by Figure 2.7, which includes income.
The factors included in the Comparative Liveability Index, along with their approximate
weights in the Index, are reviewed below.
FOSTERS FREEDOM AND OPPORTUNITY

Freedom of choice
Comparative Liveability
Score)
Average response to the Gallup World Poll 1% at the lower end of the
question “In your country, are income scale rising to 5% at
you satisfied or dissatisfied the upper end
with your freedom to choose
what you do with your life?”
Freedom of choice is an issue little studied thus far in the literature on subjective wellbeing,
although the link between choice and wellbeing has been long studied in other disciplines.
The research that does exist suggests a strong, significant empirical link between perceived
freedom of choice and wellbeing.56 For a full discussion, see Chapter 5: Freedom and
Happiness.
The Prosperity Index uses a binary survey question that assesses the satisfaction of
individuals with the freedom of choice they experience. Satisfaction with freedom of choice
proves increasingly important in explaining differences in liveability among wealthier
countries.
PAGE 37 OF 105
Equality of opportunity
Score)
Percentage of parliamentary UN Human Development 0.3% at the lower end of the
seats held by women (quota- Report income scale rising to 3% at
adjusted) the upper end
Ratio of female to male UN Human Development 0% at the lower end of the
earnings Report income scale rising to 4% at
the upper end
Average answers to the Gallup World Poll 0.5% at the lower end of the
response, “Can people in this income scale rising to 4% at
country get ahead by the upper end
working hard, or not?”
Net migration rate per UN Approaching 2% in the
thousand inhabitants middle of the income scale
and falling at either end
As with freedom of choice, there is so far little research regarding the effects of equality of
opportunity on subjective wellbeing. Research for the Prosperity Index suggests that people’s
perceptions of the level of meritocracy in their societies are a contributing factor to subjective
wellbeing across the income scale.
Other equal opportunity factors in the Index are the quota-adjusted proportion of women in
parliament, which reflects the political representation of historically disadvantaged groups,
and the ratio of female to male earnings as a proxy for equality of opportunity achieved in the
labour market. Statistical tests suggest that these gender-based indicators of equality
correlate not only with higher average life satisfaction for women, but also for the population
as a whole.
The Index also includes net migration rates, which should reveal the relative preferences of
individuals for the opportunities afforded by different societies and economies -- among other
factors.
CREATES AN ENVIRONMENT FOR WELLBEING

Good governance
Score)
Control of corruption World Bank Governance 0.3% at the lower end of the
the upper end
Voice and accountability World Bank Governance 0.3% at the lower end of the
(political rights and civil Indicators income scale rising to 6% at
liberties) the upper end
Government effectiveness World Bank Governance 0.3% at the lower end of the
the upper end
Recent research identifies a positive correlation between democracy and subjective

wellbeing, even after controlling for the effects of democracy on institutional quality. This
PAGE 38 OF 105
positive relationship appears to reflect the benefits of political participation.57 There may also
be a virtuous cycle: it is possible that high levels of average life satisfaction among citizens
boost the legitimacy of a country’s political regime and that this promotes democratic
institutions.58
More broadly, better government appears to increase average life satisfaction. This
relationship likely reflects the impact of improved quality of public services, such as physical
security, urban planning, and the justice system, as well as control of corruption and the
independence of the civil service from political pressures in general.
The relative importance of different aspects of good government appears to be related to the
level of development, a point that is reflected in the Prosperity Index. For example, the extent
to which a country's citizens are able to participate in selecting their government, as well as
their freedom of expression and freedom of association, (reflected by the voice and
accountability indicator) appear more important in explaining differences in liveability among
rich countries.59
Pleasant environment
Score)
Natural log of ecosystem Source: Costanza et al., 0.2% at the lower end of the
services product per capita 1997 income scale rising to 1% at
the upper end
Average response to the Gallup World Poll 0.5% at the lower end of the
question, “In the city or area income scale rising to 4% at
where you live, are you the upper end
satisfied or dissatisfied with
the quality of air?”
question, “In your country, income scale rising to 3% at
are you satisfied or the upper end
dissatisfied with efforts to
preserve the environment?”
Research on the link between environmental factors and subjective wellbeing is relatively
new. Survey measures of environmental quality and concern appear to show a significant
relationship with wellbeing.60 There is also more tentative evidence linking objective measures
of the environment, such as air and water pollution, to life satisfaction.
The Prosperity Index, in a similar vein, includes two subjective indicators -- satisfaction with
efforts on environmental preservation and satisfaction with air quality -- that are strong,
significant correlations with average national wellbeing. There is a less strong but still
significant correlation for the objective indicator in the Index, ecosystem services per capita,
which is a measure of the extent and value of natural land area in a country, such as lakes,
rivers, wetlands, forests and grasslands.
PAGE 39 OF 105
Moderate climate
Score)
Average temperature in the Temperature Data from the 5% at the lower end of the
coldest month of the year, Climate Research Unit CL income scale falling to 0% at
weighted by population 2.0 database, weighted using the upper end
the Gridded Population of the
World v3 database
Average temperature in the Temperature Data from the 0% at the lower end of the
warmest month of the year, Climate Research Unit CL income scale rising to 3% at
weighted by population 2.0 database, weighted using the upper end
the Gridded Population of the
World v3 database
Effects of climate on wellbeing are thus far little studied, but research suggests that extremes
of temperature have a negative impact on life satisfaction.61 The Prosperity Index finds a
similar relationship. Extremely cold average temperatures appear to be associated with large
decreases in life satisfaction in poorer countries. This may be because individuals in poorer
countries lack the means to obtain adequate shelter and heating.62
Time for leisure
Score)
Average working hours per OECD 0% at the lower end of the
week in manufacturing income scale rising to 3% at
the upper end
Average response to the Gallup World Poll 0% at the lower end of the
question, “Approximately income scale rising to 2% at
how many hours of your time the upper end
yesterday was free time,
where you could do what you
wanted to do?”
Research suggests that leisure time and subjective wellbeing are positively correlated.63 At
the same time, there is evidence that satisfaction with work has a positive effect, and there is
robust proof of drastic negative effects of unemployment.
Hence, it appears that viewing leisure as enjoyable, and work as unpleasant, would be overly
simplistic. Studies on wellbeing data suggest instead that individuals enjoy working, but not
being ‘overtaxed’.64 Research that attempts to proxy work-life balance with a number of
questions finds that insufficient time for social contacts is the most prevalent complaint related
to a lack of leisure. However, at lower standards of living, material concerns prevail in the
domain of job satisfaction, and work-life balance is less of an issue.65
In line with this research, the Prosperity Index finds leisure time to be only of significance for
liveability differences among high-income countries (with a per capita income of about 20,000
USD or more).
PAGE 40 OF 105
ALLEVIATES SOURCES OF MISERY
High incomes
Score)
Log of GDP per capita, World Development 60% at the lower end of the
measured in 2000 $US PPP Indicators, supplemented by income scale falling to 19%
IMF data for Taiwan at the upper end
Economic theory assumes that higher income leads to higher wellbeing via an expanded
opportunity set and increased utility. In his seminal paper, Richard Easterlin challenged this
conventional view with a puzzle: while average income rose seven-fold in Japan over the
1950s and 1960s, Japanese citizens did not seem any happier in 1970 than they were in
1950.
His observation is not unique to Japan, with a similar trend noticeable in the United States
and United Kingdom. Easterlin’s conclusion that economic growth does not necessarily lead
to more life satisfaction is known as the ‘Easterlin Paradox’.66
There are several potential explanations for this paradox. The most popular is that individuals
are concerned with their relative income position, and therefore, seeing others become
relatively richer makes people unhappy. In that case, rising incomes (and particularly, rising
inequality) in a country might be distressing.
There have been attempts to measure both absolute income effects (does more income
increase a person’s life satisfaction?) and relative income effects (how does the increasing
income of a person’s neighbours affect their life satisfaction?) at the same time. Some studies
have found that the impacts are directly opposite, and are of almost equal size, but these
findings are controversial.67
Another way to explain the Easterlin Paradox might be that other determinants of individual
wellbeing (such as family or community life) have worsened in industrialised societies, which
might (partially) offset the beneficial effects of rising income.
More recently, new data, particularly from the Gallup World Poll, has cast doubt on whether or
not the paradox actually exists. Based on polling data covering 95% of the world’s population,
there seems to be no evidence of a satiation point beyond which income ceases to affect life
satisfaction. 68 Time-series evidence, however, remains fragile.
In line with this new data, Prosperity Index research finds the positive relationship between
income and subjective wellbeing to hold throughout the income scale. Nonetheless, the
prevailing interpretation of Easterlin’s findings appears to retain some validity: when the
relationship between income and life satisfaction is presented in logarithmic form, non-income
factors in richer countries -- such as health, community life, freedom of choice, and family life
-- appear to have a much larger cumulative impact on comparative liveability than income.
Hence, in the Prosperity Index, income’s effect on liveability declines with increased levels of
wealth.
PAGE 41 OF 105
8
DNK
FIN
NZL NLDCHE
SWE
Country's Average Subjective Wellbeing

CAN
AUS NOR
USA
CRI BEL
SAU ESP ISR AUT IRL
7
VEN GBR
FRA
ARE ITA SGP
BRA MEX
PAN
BLZ CZE DEU
GRC JPN
JAM ARG TWN
COL MYS KWT
6
JOR
GTM CHL
THA TTO
DZA URY HRV
POL SVN
BLR
KAZ KOR
BOL
PAKEGY SLV HKG
VNM TUN EST PRT
HND
UZB IRNROM SVK
IND DOM
TUR RUS
ZAF
IDNLBN
MAR
ECU
PRYPER
UKR
CHN HUN
5
MDA
GHA PHL NAM
NGA
MOZ BWA
NPL
SDN
SEN
MNG LVA
YEMBGD MKD
ZMB
CAF NIC LKA
KEN
MLICMR
TZA
4
KHM BGR
ZWE
3
0 10000 20000 30000 40000

This graph shows all Prosperity Index countries, with their per capita income plotted against
national averages of subjective wellbeing. Even for countries above $25,000 in per-capita
income, the link between income and subjective wellbeing appears to hold.
Good health
Score)
Average life expectancy, WHO 0.2% at the lower end of the
adjusted for health income scale rising to 9% at
the upper end
question, “Are you satisfied income scale rising to 6% at
or dissatisfied with your the upper end
personal health?”
An obvious source of misery is bad health. Unsurprisingly, empirical studies find a strong,
significant correlation between self-reported health and self-reported life satisfaction.
Household level analysis commonly shows subjective health to be among the most important
determinants of life satisfaction, and more important even than income.
The observed correlation between objective health (such as health ratings by physicians or
life expectancy) and life satisfaction is much smaller. Some research finds, for instance, that
the frequency of HIV infections has little impact on health satisfaction levels in Africa. This
discrepancy between subjective and objective health measures may reflect personality
differences, as well as psychological coping mechanisms (though adaptation to grave health
problems as caused, for example, by an accident appears not to be complete).69 Alternatively,
subjective measures of health and of wellbeing may have a spuriously high positive
correlation because both are driven by inherent aspects of personality, especially optimism.
The Prosperity Index employs both a subjective health rating and an objective measure of
health, health-adjusted life expectancy. Health-adjusted life expectancy reflects the average
PAGE 42 OF 105
number of years that a person can expect to live in ‘full health’, by taking into account years
lived in less than full health due to disease or injury.70 Controlling for per capita income, both
indicators show a significant, positive relationship with average national wellbeing.
Interestingly, we find health-adjusted life expectancy to become relatively more important for
the liveability of countries with a per capita income of 20,000 USD and more. The reasons for
this finding could relate to a high value attached to a healthy and long life in rich countries, but
could equally relate to poor data quality for developing economies.
Low unemployment
Score)
Natural log of 1 plus the ILO, supplemented by data 0% at the lower end of the
employment rate from the CIA World Factbook income scale rising to 0.2%
at the upper end
Numerous studies have confirmed severe negative effects of personal unemployment on

subjective wellbeing. Moreover, survey data that track individuals over time shows that
dissatisfaction follows unemployment, and not vice versa. These data also show that
individuals who find new employment then experience a subsequent increase in life
satisfaction.
Unemployment’s impact on individual life satisfaction differs depending on the country (which
may reflect differences in labour market flexibility and/or welfare benefits). There is also
evidence that habituation effects cushion the negative effect of unemployment (people
become used to unemployment). In the extreme case this can lead to indifference vis-à-vis
personal employment status.71
At the macro level, the relationship between unemployment and life satisfaction is more
difficult to assess. Unemployment rates often seem to have no impact in poor countries,
presumably because they do not reflect the reality of economies characterised by large
informal sectors. An alternative explanation posits that social disapproval plays a large role in
the negative wellbeing effects of unemployment rates. In this case, very high unemployment
rates perversely may have a positive effect on average wellbeing.72
We find no significant relationship between unemployment and average national wellbeing in
our statistical tests. Beyond poor data quality or the reasons set out above, this could be
because unemployment is cyclical and wellbeing is not; or because unemployment is a
minority condition. Our use of a more reflective wellbeing measure, life satisfaction, instead of
a mainly affective measure such as happiness, may also explain our insignificant results.
Nonetheless, we have included the unemployment rate in the Prosperity Index, because the
evidence of the negative wellbeing impacts of unemployment is so powerful at the individual
level. However, as a result of our statistical approach to index construction, the weight
attached to this factor is extremely low.
PAGE 43 OF 105
BUILDS SOCIAL SUPPORTS
Family life
Score)
Percentage of the population Gallup World Poll 4% at the lower end of the
reporting marital status: income scale falling to 0% at
divorced the upper end
Percentage of the population Gallup World Poll 3% at the lower end of the
reporting marital status: income scale falling to 0% at
widowed the upper end
question, “If you were in income scale rising to 5% at
trouble, do you have the upper end
relatives or friends you can
count on to help you
whenever you need them, or
not?”
The family is an important determinant of subjective wellbeing, as well as an essential domain

for the accumulation of social capital. Household level analysis has demonstrated the
negative impacts of divorce and widowhood on subjective wellbeing in numerous studies
(controlling for income and demographic characteristics). Moreover, research based on time-
series data confirms that the causation is not reverse, since the associated lower life
satisfaction follows -- not precedes -- these life events.73
The Prosperity Index includes two proxies of family life on a macro level: divorce rates and
the share of population in widowhood. Employing an income control, both variables show a
significant negative correlation with average levels of wellbeing, as suggested by other
research.
A third Prosperity Index indicator attempts to capture the social capital aspect of family life. In
comparison with the other two indicators, ‘having someone to rely on’ shows a larger impact
on differences in liveability amongst rich countries (per capita income of 20,000 USD and
above). This binary survey question item makes no explicit reference to the family, but is
grouped under the family life sub-heading on the assumption that family is the core of social
support.
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Community life
Score)
Average response to the World Values Survey 0.2% at the lower end of the
question, “Generally, do you income scale rising to 2% at
feel that other people can be the upper end
trusted?”
Percentage of respondents World Values Survey 0.4% at the lower end of the
involved (actively or income scale rising to 3% at
inactively) in a community the upper end
group or organisation
question, “Have you done income scale rising to 2% at
any of the following in the the upper end
past month? How
about volunteered your time
to an organisation?”
question, “Have you done income scale rising to 5% at
any of the following in the the upper end
past month? How
about donated money to a
charity?”
Many researchers, referring to the norms and networks that facilitate society’s collaboration,
use the term ‘social capital’ to reflect, for instance, the number and vibrancy of civic
organisations such as neighbourhood associations, churches and labour unions. Some
researchers also include ‘social trust’ -- the degree of trust that people have in other members
of society -- as part of ‘social capital’. However, the most common view is that having
abundant social capital creates strong social trust.
Early studies of social capital mainly focussed on the frequency and depth of interactions at
the community level. Several surveys have measured memberships in different types of
community organisation, such as churches, clubs, and labour unions. These memberships
have been found, at the individual level, to increase social trust, and also to have additional
direct links to life satisfaction.
Across countries there are fewer studies, but those conducted find a significant link between
social capital at the community level and average national life satisfaction. Indeed, this seems
to be true for the individual effects of participation and positive social trust -- in other words,
community social capital seems to have positive externalities, making everyone more
satisfied, not just those participating in these organisations.74 Recent research proposes that
declining social capital accounts for the lack of a positive trend in wellbeing statistics over the
past 30 years in the United States, despite rising incomes.75
The Prosperity Index includes four indicators of social capital and civic engagement: social
trust, volunteering, involvement in social organisations and charitable giving. All social capital
factors are associated with an increase in subjective wellbeing, which is larger for countries
with higher per capita incomes. These findings are broadly in line with other research.76
PAGE 45 OF 105
Religious life
Score)
Percentage of respondents World Values Survey 5% at the lower end of the
answering “Very Important” income scale falling to 0% at
to the question “How the upper end
important is God in your
life?”
Government Regulation of Grim and Finke (2006), via 0.2% at the lower end of the
Religion Index the Association of Religion income scale rising to 2% at
Data Archive the upper end
Research suggests that high levels of faith –- defined as one’s perception of the importance
of God in one’s life (or respective figure or figures central to the faith) -- are associated with
higher levels of life satisfaction. This is net of social capital effects resulting from church
attendance and other faith community-related activities.
Overall, however, it remains contested whether ‘believing’ (that is, having faith) or ‘belonging’
(that is, being in a faith community) plays the decisive role for above-average wellbeing levels
among religious segments of a population. Some evidence suggests moreover that religious
individuals have more stable life satisfaction levels -- that is, they have a higher indifference to
income changes, personal unemployment, and political and economic uncertainty.77
The negative impacts of religious intolerance or extremism must also be taken into account.
The Prosperity Index does so with another indicator, religious freedom, which also correlates
with average national life satisfaction. Countries with high levels of religious faith score well
on the Religious Life indicator in the Index, but they achieve top marks only if they have
religious freedom as well. The religious freedom indicator measures the extent of freedom
from government regulation in the religious domain.
17
The dependent variables of economic growth and life satisfaction are operationalised as
long-term growth in per capita income on the Competitiveness side of the Index, and average
levels of life satisfaction on the Liveability side of the Index.
18
Weighting the Competitiveness and Liveability indices equally appears the most
comprehensible and hence transparent approach, given there is no empirical foundation for
any weighting between the two sides of the Prosperity Index.
19
The term ‘liveability’ was suggested to us by Ruut Veenhoven, although our use of the term
may cover a different set of issues than he intended. See Veenhoven, Ruut (2006). “The Four
Qualities of Life : Ordering Concepts and Measures of the Good Life “. Chapter 4 (pp 74-101)
in Mark McGillivray and Matthew Clarke, eds., Understanding Human Wellbeing. New York:
United Nations University Press.
20
Further details can be found in the separate technical appendix, available by request.
21
Readers will notice a negative slope at the right side of the graph. This could be because
highly effective (i.e., rich country) governments tend to pursue non-economic (i.e., wellbeing)
objectives. Another possibility is that this reflects inherently lower rates of economic growth in
rich countries (although the regression controls for this with a convergence term). Note that, in
PAGE 46 OF 105
any event, this result is not reflected in the Prosperity Index, in which the weight of
governance varies with income, not with governance (see Figure 2.3).
22
However, there are limits in the accuracy with which the Prosperity Index can be used to
assess these tradeoffs, due to two statistical problems known as ‘omitted variable bias’ and
‘endogeneity’ that are inherent to the approach used to develop the Index. As a result, we
cannot make an accurate measurement of policy impacts (e.g., raising incomes in Norway by
3% will increase wellbeing by 2%). This is an area for future research. For the time being, the
tradeoffs indicated in the Index results are suggestive.
23
The Global Competitiveness Index also differentiates between factor-driven, efficiency-
driven and innovation-driven countries depending on their stage of economic development.
Lopez-Claros, Augusto, Michael E. Porter and Klaus Schwab. 2005. The Global
Competitiveness Report 2005-2006. The World Economic Forum: 25.
24
For a survey of growth literature, see: Barro, Robert and Xavier Sala-i-Martin. 2003.
Economic Growth, 2nd Ed. Cambridge, MA: The MIT Press.
25
See, for example, Sachs, J.D. and A.M. Warner. 1997. “Fundamental Sources of Long-Run
Growth”. American Economic Review 87(2), 184-188; Solow, Robert M. 1956. ”A Contribution
to the Theory of Economic Growth”. The Quarterly Journal of Economics 70, no. 1: 65-94; and
Solow, Robert M. 1957. “Technical Change and the Aggregate Production Function“. The
Review of Economics and Statistics 39, no. 3: 312-320.
26
Romer, Paul M. 1986. “Increasing Returns and Long-Run Growth”. The Journal of Political
Economy 94, no. 5: 1002-1037.
27
Aghion, Phillipe and Peter Howitt. 1992. “A Model of Growth Through Creative Destruction”.
Econometrica 60, no. 2: 323-351; and
Aghion, Phillipe and Peter Howitt. 1998. Endogenous Growth Theory. Cambridge, MA: The
MIT Press.
28
See, for instance: Easterly, William. 2001. The Elusive Quest for Growth: Economists’
Adventures and Misadventures in the Tropics. Cambridge, MA: The MIT Press.
29
Please refer to the separate technical appendix, available on request, for further details on
the use of specific datasets for specific indicators, time periods, data sources etc.
30
See: Mankiw, N. Gregory, David Romer and David N. Weil. 1992. “A Contribution to the
Empirics of Economic Growth”. The Quarterly Journal of Economics 107, no. 2: 407-437;
Klenow, Peter and Andres Rodriguez-Clare. 1997. “Economic Growth: A Review Essay”.
Journal of Monetary Economics 40, no. 3: 597-617; and
Hall, Robert E. and Charles I. Jones. 1999. “Why Do Some Countries Produce So Much More
Output Than Others?” The Quarterly Journal of Economics 114, no. 1: 83-116.
PAGE 47 OF 105
31
De Long, J. Bradford and Lawrence H. Summers. 1991. “Equipment Investment and
Economic Growth”. The Quarterly Journal of Economics 106, no. 2: 445-502.
32
Rodrik, Dani, Arvind Subramanian and Francesco Trebbi. 2004. “Institutions Rule: The
Primacy of Institutions Over Geography and Integration in Economic Development”. Journal
of Economic Growth 9, no. 2: 131-165.
For a critique that confirms governance to be important for long-run growth but challenges
Rodrik et al’s disqualification of trade as a main causal determinant of growth, see: Dollar,
David and Aart Kraay. 2003. “Institutions, Trade and Growth”. Journal of Monetary Economics
50, no. 1: 133-162.
33
Jalilian, Hossein, Colin Kirkpatrick and David Parker. 2007. “The Impact of Regulation on
Economic Growth in Developing Countries: A Cross-Country Analysis”. World Development
35, no. 1: 87-103.
34
See Kaufmann, Daniel and Aart Kraay. 2002. “Growth Without Governance”. Economia 3,
no. 2: 169-229.
35
The specific indicators that underlie these governance measures may be found at
http://www.govindicators.org.
36
Jones, Charles. 1994. “Economic Growth and the Relative Price of Capital”. Journal of
Monetary Economics 34: 359-382;
Bassanini, Andrea, Stefano Scarpetta and Philip Hemmings. 2001. "Economic Growth: The
Role of Policies and Institutions, Panel Data Evidence from OECD Countries”. OECD
Economics Department Working Papers 283; and
Dutz, Mark A. and Maria Vagliasindi. 2000. “Competition Policy Implementation in Transition
Economies: An Empirical Assessment”. European Economic Review 44, no. 5: 762-772.
37
Switzerland is a problematic case for many growth competitiveness indices. See the World
Economic Forum Global Competitiveness Reports for the years to 2006.
38
Engel, Charles and John H. Rogers. 2001. “Deviations from Purchasing Power Parity:
Causes and Welfare Costs”. Journal of International Economics 55: 29-57; and
Easterly, William. 1994. “Economic Stagnation, Fixed Factors, and Economic Growth”.
Journal of Monetary Economics 33, no. 3: 525-557.
39
Bhagwati, Jagdish. 1969. Trade, Tariffs and Growth: Essays in International Economics.
Cambridge, MA: The MIT Press;
Samuelson, Paul. 1962. “The Gains from International Trade Once Again”. Economic Journal
72: 820-829;
Alcala, Francisco and Antonio Ciccone. 2004. “Trade and Productivity”. Quarterly Journal of
Economics 119, no. 2: 613-646;
Frankel, Jeffrey and David Romer. 1999. “Does Trade Cause Growth?” American Economic
Review 89, no. 3: 379-399;
PAGE 48 OF 105
Grossman, Gene M. and Elhanan Helpman. 1991. Innovation and Growth in the Global
Economy. Cambridge, MA: The MIT Press;
Sachs, Jeffrey D. and Andrew Warner. 1995. “Economic Reforms and the Process of Global
Integration”. Brookings Papers on Economic Activity: 1-118.
40
Rodriguez, Francisco and Dani Rodrik. 2000. “Trade Policy and Economic Growth: A
Skeptic’s Guide to the Cross-National Evidence”. NBER Macroeconomics Annual: 261-324.
41
Borensztein, Eduardo, Jose De Gregorio and Jong-Wha Lee. 1998. “How Does Foreign
Direct Investment Affect Growth?” Journal of International Economics 45, no. 1: 115-135;
Bekaert, Geert, Campbell R. Harvey and Christian Lundblad. 2005. “Does Financial
Liberalization Spur Growth?” Journal of Financial Economics 77, no. 1: 3-55.
42
See for instance Frankel, Jeffrey and Andrew Rose. 2002. “An Estimate of the Effect of
Common Currencies on Trade and Income”. Quarterly Journal of Economics 117, no. 2: 437-
466.
43
Alongside other criticism on how educational investment is measured, Cohen and Soto
(2007) highlight that with better data, human capital’s positive and significant impact on
growth survives a huge array of econometric specifications and even falls closely in line with
the microeconomic estimates of the returns to schooling. See Cohen, Daniel and Marcelo
Soto. 2007. “Growth and Human Capital: Good Data, Good Results”. Journal of Economic
Growth 12, no. 1;
and Krueger, Alan B. and Mikael Lindahl. 2001. “Education for Growth: Why and for Whom?”
Journal of Economic Literature XXXIX: 1101-1136.
44
Nelson, Richard R. and Edmund S. Phelps. 1966. “Investment in Humans, Technological
Diffusion, and Economic Growth”. American Economic Review 56, no. 1: 69-75;
Benhabib, Jess and Mark M. Spiegel. 2005. “Human Capital and Technology Diffusion” in
Aghion, Phillipe and Steven N. Durlauf. Handbook of Economic Growth, Volume 1. Elsevier:
935-966;
Romer, Paul M. 1990. “Endogenous Technological Change”. The Journal of Political
Economy 98, no. 5, Part 2: The Problem of Development: A Conference of the Institute for the
Study of Free Enterprise Systems: S71-S102;
Lucas, Robert E. B. 1988. “On the Mechanics of Economic Development”. Journal of
Monetary Economics 22: 3-42; and
Grossman, Gene M. and Elhanan Helpman. 1991. Innovation and Growth in the Global
Economy. Cambridge, MA: The MIT Press.
45
Aghion, Phillipe and Peter Howitt. 1992. “A Model of Growth Through Creative Destruction”.
Econometrica 60, no. 2: 323-351; and
Aghion, Phillipe and Peter Howitt. 1998. Endogenous Growth Theory. Cambridge, MA: The
MIT Press.
46
See Griffith, Rachel, Stephen Redding and John Van Reenen. 2004. “Mapping the Two
Faces of R&D: Productivity Growth in a Panel of OECD Industries”. The Review of Economics
and Statistics 86, no. 4: 883-895.
PAGE 49 OF 105
47
Eaton, Jonathan and Samuel Kortum. 1996. “Trade in Ideas: Patenting and Productivity in
the OECD”. Journal of International Economics 40, no. 3: 251-278.
48
Madsden, Jakob B. 2007. “Technology Spillover Through Trade and TFP Convergence:
135 Years of Evidence for the OECD Countries”. Journal of International Economics 72, no.
2: 464-480; and
Engelbrecht, Hans-Jurgen. 1997. “International R&D Spillovers, Human Capital and
Productivity in OECD Economies: An Empirical Investigation”. European Economic Review
41, no. 8: 1479-1488.
49
It can be argued that business ownership and entrepreneurship are not the same, since
entrepreneurship is not a form of property right but the ability to create new forms or sources
of value. Since quantifying entrepreneurship is difficult and measures of entrepreneurship
have emerged only recently, the Prosperity Index takes business ownership as an (admittedly
imperfect) indicator of entrepreneurship.
50
Sarte, Pierre-Daneil G. 2000. “Informality and Rent-Seeking Bureaucracies in a Model of
Long-Run Growth”. Journal of Monetary Economics 46, no. 1: 173-197.
51
Beck, Thorsten, Asli Demiguc-Kunt and Ross Levine. 2005. “SMEs, Growth, and Poverty:
Cross-Country Evidence”. Journal of Economic Growth 10, no. 3: 199-229; and
King, Robert G. and Ross Levine. 1993. “Finance, Entrepreneurship and Growth: Theory and
Evidence”. Journal of Monetary Economics 32, no. 3: 513-542.
52
Iyigun, Murat and Ann L. Owen. 1999. “Entrepreneurship, Professionals and Growth”.
Journal of Economic Growth 4, no. 2: 213-232; Michelacci, Claudio. 2003. “Low Returns in
R&D Due to the Lack of Entrepreneurial Skills”. The Economic Journal 113, no. 484: 207-225.
53
Sokoloff, Kenneth L. and Stanley L. Engerman. 2000. “History Lessons: Institutions, Factor
Endowments, and Paths of Development in the New World”. The Journal of Economic
Perspectives 14, no. 3: 217-232.
For econometric evidence confirming Sokoloff and Engerman’s findings, see for example:
Acemoglu, Daron, Simon Johnson and James A. Robinson. 2001. “The Colonial Origins of
Comparative Development: An Empirical Investigation”. American Economic Review 91, no.
5: 1369-1401.
54
Sachs, Jeffrey D. and Andrew M. Warner. 1995; revised 1997, 1999. “Natural Resource
Abundance and Economic Growth”. NBER Working Paper no. 5398. Cambridge: National
Bureau of Economic Research;
Sachs, Jeffrey D. and Andrew M. Warner. 2001. “The Curse of Natural Resources”. European
Economic Review 45: 827-838; and
Sachs, Jeffrey D. and Andrew M. Warner. 1999. “The Big Push, Natural Resource Booms and
Growth”. Journal of Development Economics 59, no. 1: 43-76; as well as
Rodriguez, Francisco and Jeffrey D. Sachs. 1999. “Why Do Resource-Abundant Economies
Grow More Slowly?” Journal of Economic Growth 4, no. 3: 277-303.
PAGE 50 OF 105
55
Roodman, David. 2007. “The Anarchy of Numbers: Aid, Development and Cross-Country
Empirics”. The World Bank Economic Review 21, no. 2: 255-277; and
Burnside, Craig and David Dollar. 2000. “Aid, Policies, and Growth”. American Economic
Review 90, no. 4: 847-868.
For rebuttals of Burnside and Dollar, see:
Easterly, William, Ross Levine and David Roodman. 2004. “Aid, Policies, and Growth:
Comment”. American Economic Review 94, no. 3: 774-780; and
Rajan, Raghuram and Arvind Subramanian. Forthcoming. “Aid and Growth: What Does the
Cross-Country Evidence Really Show?” Review of Economics and Statistics.
56
Verme, Paolo. 2008. “The Role of Freedom and Control in Explaining Happiness”. Paper
presented at Legatum Prosperity Index Symposium, June 2008, London; and
Veenhoven, Ruut. 2008. “Freedom and Happiness”. Paper presented at Legatum Prosperity
Index Symposium, June 2008, London.
57
Helliwell, John F. and Haifang Huang. Forthcoming. “How's Your Government?
International Evidence Linking Good Government and Wellbeing”. British Journal of Political
Science;
Owen, Anne L., Julio Videras and Christina Willemsen. Forthcoming. “Democracy,
Participation and Life Satisfaction”. Social Science Quarterly; and
Frey, Bruno S. and Alois Stutzer. 2002. Happiness and Economics. Princeton: Princeton
University Press.
58
Inglehart, Robert F. 1999. “Trust, Wellbeing and Democracy”. In Democracy and Trust, ed.
Mark E. Warren: 88-120. Cambridge University Press.
59
The factors underlying each of the governance measures can be found at
http://www.govindicators.org.
60
Brereton, Finbarr, J. Peter Clinch and Susanna Ferreira. 2006. “Happiness, Geography and
the Environment”. Working Paper, Planning and Environmental Policy Research Series PEP
06/04. University College Dublin; and
Ferrer-I-Carbonell, Ada and John M. Gowdy. 2007. “Environmental Degradation and
Happiness”. Ecological Economics 60: 507-516.
61
Brereton, Finbarr, J. Peter Clinch and Susanna Ferreira. 2006. “Happiness, Geography and
the Environment”. Working Paper, Planning and Environmental Policy Research Series PEP
06/04. University College Dublin;
Rehdanz, Katrin and David Maddison. April 2003. “Climate and Happiness”. Working Paper
FNU-20, Centre for Marine and Climate Research, Hamburg University; and
Frijters, Paul and Bernhard S. M. Van Praag. 1998. “The Effects of Climate on Wellbeing in
Russia”. Climatic Change 39: 61-81.
PAGE 51 OF 105
62
The country climate data used in the Prosperity Index is weighted by density of population.
This means that climate zones that are relatively small compared to the geographical area of
the country will be weighted lightly in calculating the average monthly temperature.
63
Argyle, Michael. 1996. The Social Psychology of Leisure. London: Penguin.
64
Frey, Bruno S. and Alois Stutzer. 2002. Happiness and Economics: How the Economy and
Institutions Affect Human Wellbeing. Princeton University Press: 107.
65
Wallace, Claire, Florian Pichler and Bernadette C. Hayes. 1995. “First European Quality of
Life Survey: Quality of Work and Life Satisfaction”. European Foundation for the Improvement
of Living and Working Conditions EF/06/95/EN. Luxembourg: Off ice for Official Publications
of the European Communities.
66
Easterlin, Richard. 1974. “Does Economic Growth Improve the Human Lot? Some
Empirical Evidence”. Nations and Households in Economic Growth: Essays in Honour of
Moses Abramovitz, ed. Paul A. David and M. W. Reder: 89-125. New York and London:
Academic Press;
Blanchflower, Daniel G. and Andrew J. Oswald. 2000. “Wellbeing Over Time in Britain and the
USA”. NBER Working Paper no. 7487. Cambridge: National Bureau of Economic Research.
67
Di Tella, Rafael, Robert J. MacCulloch and Andrew J. Oswald. 2003. “The Macroeconomics
of Happiness”. The Review of Economics and Statistics 85(4): 809-827.
68
Deaton, Angus. July 2007. “Income, Aging, Health and Wellbeing Around the World:
Evidence From the World Gallup Poll”. Working Paper Draft, Center for Health and Wellbeing
Research Program in Development Studies, Princeton University, and National Bureau of
Economic Research;
Stevenson, Betsey and Justin Wolfers. May 2008. “Economic Growth and Subjective
Wellbeing: Reassessing the Easterlin Paradox”. Draft, University of Pennsylvania / National
Bureau of Economic Research.
69
Deaton, Angus. July 2007. “Income, Aging, Health and Wellbeing Around the World:
Evidence From the World Gallup Poll”. Working Paper Draft, Center for Health and Wellbeing
Research Program in Development Studies, Princeton University, and National Bureau of
Economic Research; and
Helliwell, John F. 2005. “Wellbeing, Social Capital and Public Policy: What’s New?” NBER
Working Paper 11807. Cambridge: National Bureau of Economic Research.
70
See World Health Organisation, http://www.who.int/whosis/indicators/2007HALE0/en/
71
Clark, Andrew E., Yannis Georgellis and Peter Sanfey. May 2001. “Scarring: The
Psychological Impact of Past Unemployment”. Economica New Series 68(270): 221-241;
Wallace, Claire, Florian Pichler and Bernadette C. Hayes. 1995. “First European Quality of
Life Survey: Quality of Work and Life Satisfaction”. European Foundation for the Improvement
of Living and Working Conditions EF/06/95/EN. Luxembourg: Off ice for Official Publications
of the European Communities; and
PAGE 52 OF 105
Winkelmann, Liliana and Rainer Winkelmann. 1998. “Why Are the Unemployed so Unhappy?
Evidence From Panel Data”. Economica, New Series 65(257): 1-15.
72
Di Tella, Rafael and Robert MacCulloch. 2006. “Some Uses of Happiness Data in
Economics”. Journal of Economic Perspectives. 20(1):25-46; and
Eggers, Andrew, Clifford Gaddy and Carol Graham. 2004. “Wellbeing and Unemployment in
Russia in the 1990’s: Can Society’s Suffering Be Individuals’ Solace?” Working Paper.
Washington D.C.: The Brookings Institution.
73
Clark, Andrew, Ed Diener, Yannis Georgellis and Richard E. Lucas. December 2006. “Lags
and Leads in Life Satisfaction: A Test of the Baseline Hypothesis”. Discussion Paper No.
2526. Institute for the Study of Labour, Bonn.
74
Helliwell, J. 2004. “Wellbeing and Social Capital: Does Suicide Pose a Puzzle?” NBER
Working Paper 10896;
Helliwell, J., and Putnam, R. 2005. “The Social Context of Wellbeing”. Reprinted in The
Science of Wellbeing, ed. F.A. Huppert, B. Kaverne and N. Baylis;
Helliwell, J. and Huang, H. 2005. “How’s the Job? Wellbeing and Social Capital in the
Workplace”. NBER Working Paper 11759. Cambridge: National Bureau of Economic
Research; and
Organisation for Economic Cooperation and Development. 2001. The Wellbeing of Nations:
The Role of Human and Social Capital.
75
Putnam, Robert. 2000. Bowling Alone: The Collapse and Revival of the American
Community. New York: Simon & Schuster; and
Bartolini, S., E. Bilancini, M. Pugno. 2007. “Did the Decline in Social Capital Decrease
American Happiness?“ Paper presented at Policies for Happiness, June 14-17, 2007,
University of Siena.
76
Meier, Stefan and Alois Stutzer. February 2004. “Is Volunteering Rewarding in Itself?
Working Paper No. 180. Working Paper Series, Institute for Empirical Research in
Economics, University of Zurich; and
Helliwell, John F. 2004. “Wellbeing, Social Capital and Public Policy: What’s New?” NBER
Working Paper 11807. Cambridge: National Bureau of Economic Research.
77
Helliwell, John F. 2002. “How’s Life? Combining Individual and National Variables to
Explain Subjective Wellbeing”. NBER Working Paper 9065. Cambridge: National Bureau of
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Journal of Economic Behavior and Organisation Vol. 59: 173-194.
PAGE 53 OF 105
3. Special Topics: Entrepreneurship and Economic Growth
By David Audretsch. Dr. Audretsch is the Director of the Max Planck Institute of Economics
and Scholar-in-Residence at the Ewing Marion Kauffman Foundation.
3.1 Introduction
With the 2000 Lisbon Proclamation, Romano Prodi, who was at the time serving as President
of the European Commission, committed Europe to becoming the leader of entrepreneurship
in the world in order to ensure prosperity and a high standard of living throughout the
continent. In particular, Prodi proclaimed that the promotion of entrepreneurship was a central
cornerstone of European economic growth policy:
“Our lacunae in the field of entrepreneurship needs to be taken
seriously because there is mounting evidence that the key to
economic growth and productivity improvements lies in the
entrepreneurial capacity of an economy”.78
Romano Prodi and the European Union were not alone in turning to entrepreneurship to
provide the engine of economic growth. The entrepreneurial policy mandate mirrored similar
efforts throughout the developed world. Public policy spanning a broad spectrum of national,
regional and local contexts was turning to entrepreneurship to replace old jobs which were
being lost to outsourcing and globalisation, while at the same time to harness the potential
that remained largely dormant from significant long-term investments in knowledge, such as
universities, education and research institutions.
Only a few years earlier the policy debate focusing on growth and employment had looked to
the macroeconomic instruments of fiscal and monetary policy on the one hand, and the size
and scale economies yielded by the large corporation on the other. After all, scholars such as
Alfred Chandler, Joseph Schumpeter and John Kenneth Galbraith had convinced a
generation of policy makers that efficiency and growth lay in the domain of large corporations
and that small business would simply fade away under the weight of its own inefficiency. To
many experts, their analyses seemed to be even more relevant with the emergence of
globalisation, where scale and scope were assumed to be a pre-requisite for competitiveness
and sustainability in the era of globalisation.
The purpose of this article is to explain why, in fact, entrepreneurship has emerged as an
important source of economic growth, employment and competitiveness. Even as Europe and
North America are losing the comparative advantage for economic activity based on physical
capital, which includes many manufacturing industries, the high-cost countries of Europe and
North America are turning towards knowledge-based economic activity as a strategy to
generate growth, employment and competitiveness in a globalised economy. However, as
this article will explain, investments in knowledge may not suffice in generating economic
growth. Rather, entrepreneurship provides an important mechanism that actually transforms
investments in knowledge, ideas and creativity, into innovative activity and ultimately
economic growth. The emergence of entrepreneurship policy as a key component to fostering
economic growth has resulted in a rethinking of institutions and policies in an effort to create
an entrepreneurial society.
3.2 Economic Growth: The Traditional View

Economic growth has been a major preoccupation of economists, dating back at least to
Adam Smith. William Stanley Jevons, for example, posited a growth theory based on the
activity of sunspots. Robert Solow took a less exotic approach to explaining economic growth.
Writing in the post-war era, Solow was awarded the Nobel Prize for his model of economic
growth based on what became termed as the neoclassical production function. In the Solow
model two key factors of production -- physical capital and skilled and unskilled labour were
econometrically linked to explain economic growth. Solow did acknowledge that technical
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change contributed to economic growth, but in terms of his formal model, it was considered to
be an unexplained residual, which ‘falls like manna from heaven’.
Solow’s path-breaking research inspired a subsequent generation of economists to rely upon
the model of the production function as a basis for explaining the determinants of economic
growth. This approach generally consisted of relating various measures representing these
two fundamental factors of production, physical capital and unskilled labour, in trying to
explain variations in growth rates, typically over time in a single country or across countries in
a cross-sectional context.
Growth policy, or economic policy for growth, if not shaped by the Solow theoretical growth
model, certainly corresponded to the view that inducing investments in physical capital in
particular was the key to generating economic growth and advances in worker productivity.
Both the economics literature and the corresponding public policy discourse was decidedly
focussed on which instruments, such as monetary policy versus fiscal policy, or interest rates
versus capital depreciation allowances, were best suited to induce investment in physical
capital and ultimately promote growth. While these debates may never have been
satisfactorily resolved, their tenacity reflects the deep-seated belief about the primacy of
capital investment as the fundamental source of economic growth.
While economic growth policy seemingly fell squarely within the domain of macroeconomics,
the primacy of capital as a factor of production had implications at the microeconomic level for
the organisation of both the enterprise and the industry or market. There were both theoretical
arguments and empirical verification suggesting that the organisation of economic activity to
efficiently utilise the factor of physical capital might, in fact, not be consistent with the
assumptions needed for perfect competition, and therefore economic welfare. In particular,
capital seemed to be deployed most efficiently in large organisations capable of exhausting
significant economies of scale, resulting in a concentrated industry or market, consisting of
just a few main producers. The emergence and ascendancy of the applied field of industrial
organisation in economics reflected the importance of this concern.
During the post-war period a generation of scholars galvanised the field of industrial
organisation by developing a research agenda dedicated to identifying the issues involving
this perceived trade-off between economic efficiency on the one hand and political and
economic decentralisation on the other.79 Scholarship in the field of industrial organisation
generated a massive literature focusing on essentially three issues: (i) What are the gains to
size and large-scale production? (ii) What are the economic welfare implications of having an
oligopolistic or concentrated market structure, i.e. is economic performance promoted or
reduced in an industry with just a handful of large-scale firms? and (iii) Given the
overwhelming evidence that large-scale production resulting in economic concentration is
associated with increased efficiency, what are the public policy implications?
A generation of scholars had arduously and systematically documented painstaking empirical
evidence that supported the conclusion of Joseph A. Schumpeter, “What we have got to
accept is that the large-scale establishment or unit of control has come to be the most
powerful engine of progress and in particular of the long-run expansion of output…”80 John
Kenneth Galbraith provided a post-war interpretation, “There is no more pleasant fiction than
that technological change is the product of the matchless ingenuity of the small man forced by
competition to employ his wits to better his neighbour”.81
The pervasive fear of the Soviet Union that emerged as the Cold War succeeded the Second
World War went beyond concerns about military competition and the space race. Many in the
West worried that the launching of Sputnik demonstrated the superior organisation of Soviet
industry. Facilitated by centralised planning, the Soviet economy apparently generated rates
of growth higher than those of western economies, threatening, ultimately, to “bury” (as Soviet
Premier Nikita Khruschev famously put it) the free market competition. After all, the nations of
Eastern Europe, and the Soviet Union in particular, had a ‘luxury’ inherent in their systems of
centralised planning -- a concentration of economic assets on a scale beyond anything
imaginable in the West, where the commitment to democracy seemingly imposed a
concomitant commitment to economic decentralisation.
Western economists and policy-makers of the day were nearly unanimous in their acclaim for
large-scale enterprises. It is no doubt an irony of history that this consensus mirrored a
remarkably similar gigantism embedded in Soviet doctrine, fuelled by the writings of Marx and
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ultimately implemented by the iron fist of Stalin. This was the era of mass production when
economies of scale seemed to be the decisive factor in determining efficiency. This was the
world so colourfully described by John Kenneth Galbraith in his theory of countervailing
power, in which big business was held in check by big labour and by big government. This
was the era of the man in the grey flannel suit82 and the organisation man,83 when virtually
every major social and economic institution acted to reinforce the stability and predictability
needed for mass production.84
With a decided focus on the role of large corporations, oligopoly and economic concentration,
the literature on industrial organisation yielded a number of key insights concerning the
efficiency and impact on economic performance associated with new and small firms:
Small firms were generally less efficient than their larger counterparts. Studies from the U.S.
in the 1960s and 1970 revealed that small firms produced at lower levels of efficiency, leading
Weiss to conclude that, “On the average, about half of total shipments in the industries
covered are from suboptimal plants. The majority of plants in most industries are suboptimal
in scale, and a very large percentage of output is from suboptimal plants”.85 Pratten found
similar evidence for the United Kingdom, where suboptimal scale establishments accounted
for 47.9 percent of industry shipments.
Small firms provided lower levels of employee compensation. Empirical evidence from both
North America and Europe found a systematic and positive relationship between employee
compensation and firm size.86
Small firms were only marginally involved in innovative activity. Based on R&D measures,
SMEs accounted for only a small amount of innovative activity. The relative importance of
small firms was declining over time in both North America and Europe. A clear trend was
identified towards an increased share of economic activity accounted for by the largest
corporations while small firms were losing importance in the economy.87
Thus, in the post-war era, small firms and entrepreneurship were viewed as a luxury, perhaps
needed by the West to ensure a decentralisation of decision making, but in any case obtained
only at a cost to efficiency. As shown in Figure 3.1, most countries, for example, had smaller
percentages of entrepreneurship in the national workforce in the 1970s and 1980s than in the
1990s and 2000s. For example, in 1972, eight percent of the national workforce in the U.S.
consisted of entrepreneurs, compared to ten percent of the national workforce in 2004.
FIGURE 3.1: RATE OF ENTREPRENEURSHIP IN SELECTED COUNTRIES, 1972 TO 2004
PAGE 56 OF 105
Source: Roy Thurik, “Determinants of entrepreneurial engagement levels in Europe and the
US”
Certainly the systematic empirical evidence, gathered from the United States documented a
sharp trend towards a decreased role of small firms during the post-war period. Even
advocates of small business agreed that small firms were less efficient than big companies.
Public policy toward small firms generally reflected the view of economists and other scholars.
Some countries, such as the Soviet Union, Sweden and France, adopted the policy of
allowing small firms to gradually disappear and account for a smaller share of economic
activity.88
U.S. public policy, on the other hand, reflected the long-term political and social valuation of
small firms that seemed to reach back to the Jeffersonian traditions of the country. After all, in
the 1890 debate in Congress, Senator Sherman vowed, “If we will not endure a King as a
political power we should not endure a King over the production, transportation, and sale of
the necessaries of life. If we would not submit to an emperor we should not submit to an
autocrat of trade with power to prevent competition and to fix the price of any commodity”.89
Thus, public policy toward small business in the United States was oriented towards
preserving what were considered to be inefficient enterprises, which, if left unprotected, might
otherwise become extinct. An example of such preservationist policies towards small
business was provided by enactment and enforcement of the Robinson-Patman Act. Even
advocates of small business agreed that small firms were less efficient than big companies.
These advocates were willing to sacrifice a modicum of efficiency, however, because of other
contributions -- moral, political, and otherwise -- made by small business to society.90 Small
business policy was thus ‘preservationist’ in character.
The same political rationale was clearly at work with the creation of the U.S. Small Business
Administration. In the Small Business Act of July 10, 1953, Congress authorised the creation
of the Small Business Administration, with an explicit mandate to “aid, counsel, assist and
91
protect…the interests of small business concerns”. The Small Business Act was an attempt
by the Congress to halt the continued disappearance of small businesses and to preserve
their role in the US economy.
3.3 Globalisation and the Role of Knowledge

When the Berlin Wall fell in November 1989, most scholars, as well as policy makers,
anticipated what was expressed as a peace dividend for Europe in terms of economic growth.
After all, the post-war recovery of Europe, and especially particular countries such as
Germany and Sweden, had been based on wresting the comparative advantage from the
United States in key capital-based industries, such as automobiles, steel, and machine tools.
Economic growth, employment and competitiveness throughout the post-war era had been
driven by physical capital. Just as Robert Solow was awarded a Nobel Prize for identifying
physical capital as the main factor driving economic growth that could be identified, it was
surely no coincidence that decades earlier Karl Marx had titled his history changing book Das
Kapital. If Europe could export automobiles, steel and tires to the United States, the prospects
for dominance in export markets to the newly accessible countries in Central and Eastern
Europe, as well as those in Asia, such as China.
Thus, it came as something of a shock when it became clear that, rather than reinforce the
post-war European comparative advantage in capital-goods industries, the post-Berlin Wall
globalisation triggered a loss in European competitiveness in its stalwart traditional
manufacturing industries.
Driven by the harsh logic of globalisation, new, European companies were increasingly
choosing to outsource and offshore in a desperate effort to remain competitive. While this
might have preserved, or even enhanced, the competitiveness of some European companies,
it eroded the levels of economic growth throughout Europe and triggered increases in
unemployment that ratcheted upwards throughout the decade of the 1990s.
As an article entitled, “Germany: World Leading Exporter (of Jobs)”, in the most prestigious
weekly German magazine, Der Spiegel, reports, “employment in manufacturing rose
throughout the era of the post-war managed economy, increasing from 12.5 million in 1970 to
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14.1 million in 1991; then, as globalisation hit Germany, manufacturing jobs crashed to 10.2
million in 2004.92 Between 1991 and 2004, the number of jobs in the German textile industry
fell by 65 percent, from 274,658 to 94,432. In the construction industry, there was a 58
percent decrease in employment in Germany, from 1.9 million jobs to 778,000. In the
metalworking industries, employment decreased from 576,299 to 250,024, or 47.5 percent.
And in the heart and soul of German manufacturing, the machine tool industry, the number of
jobs fell from 1.6 million to 947,448, or 39.1 percent.
Both outsourcing and offshoring have emerged as a strategic response to global competition,
helping businesses maintain and, sometimes, enhance profitability. In Germany, this
phenomenon has brought on a seemingly schizophrenic euphoria. On the one hand,
corporate executives and policy makers are celebrating a ‘champagne mood’, as profits are
rising to record levels, sales increasing, as the overall prospects for Germany corporations
improve to better than they have been in years.93 On the other hand, unemployment remains
perilously below five million unemployed workers. As one of the most influential daily German
newspapers, Die Welt, warned Germany’s chancellor, Angela Merkel, “What use is the new
strength and optimism of German companies if nothing is changed in the labour market”.94
Even as the comparative advantage in (physical) capital in Europe was beginning to fade,
scholars and policy makers began to recognise the primacy of a very different factor of
production -- knowledge capital, which is based not just on technological and scientific
knowledge, but also in a broader sense of ideas, creativity, originality and novelty. The
recognition by Romer and Lucas, among others, that knowledge was not only endogenous,
but that it also spilled over for commercialisation by firms and individuals other than the firm or
university actually creating that knowledge in the first place, shifted the policy debate and
focus away from instruments inducing investments in physical capital towards instruments
generating knowledge and ideas, such as university research, education and training, and
patents. Indeed, as shown in Figure 2, one notes the relative increase in patent activity in the
late 1980s.
FIGURE 3.2: COUNTRIES INNOVATIVE PROPENSITY, 1883 TO 2006
Countries Innovative Propensity, 1883 to 2006
500,000
450,000
400,000
Number of Patent Applications
350,000
300,000
250,000
200,000
150,000
100,000
50,000
0
83
87
91
95
99
03
07
11
15
19
23
27
31
35
39
43
47
51
55
59
63
67
71
75
79
83
87
91
95
99
03
18
18
18
18
18
19
19
19
19
19
19
19
19
19
19
19
19
19
19
19
19
19
19
19
19
19
19
19
19
19
20
Year
Germany European Patent Office United Kingdom Japan Sweden United States of America
Source: World Intellectual Property Organisation
Thus, even as Europe began losing the comparative advantage in physical capital, it seemed
to be at least as well poised to thrive with a knowledge-based economy. In particularly, the
Nordic countries, but also Northern Europe more generally, ranked among the world’s leaders
in terms of the most common measures of knowledge. Thus, the inability of countries which
were knowledge leaders, such as Sweden, to prosper in the global economy was so striking
that it was referred to as the ‘Swedish Paradox’. However, it was not just Sweden that
exhibited surprising low growth rates and rising unemployment, while at the same time have
high rates of investment in research, human capital and culture. The European Union adapted
the label to describe what it termed as the ‘European Paradox’. While the prescriptions of
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investments in knowledge reflecting the policy prescriptions of the economic models of
scholars, the experience of Sweden, and in fact much of Europe, suggested that the links
between knowledge and growth are, in fact, more nuanced and complicated.
3.4 The Knowledge Filter and Entrepreneurship

How basic could policy makers solve the European Paradox, or stagnant economic growth
even in the wake of vigorous investments in human capital, research and, more generally,
knowledge? The resolution to this paradox lie in the conditions inherent in knowledge -- high
uncertainty, asymmetries and transactions cost -- which result in decision making hierarchies
in companies reaching the decision not to pursue and try to commercialise new ideas that
individual economic agents, or groups or teams of economic agents think are potentially
valuable and should be pursued. The characteristics of knowledge distinguishing it from
information, a high degree of uncertainty combined with non-trivial asymmetries, combined
with a broad spectrum of institutions, rules and regulations impose what Audretsch and Acs
term the knowledge filter. The knowledge filter is the gap between knowledge that has a
potential commercial value and knowledge that is actually commercialised. In some senses, it
is a barrier for invention. Inventions which are not commercialised are unable to cross over
into the commercial sector and consequently positively affect economic growth. The greater is
the knowledge filter, the more pronounced is the gap between new knowledge and
commercialised knowledge. As one notes in Figure 3.3, entrepreneurs play a unique role in
advancing innovation.
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FIGURE 3.3: ENTREPRENEURSHIP ALLOWS IDEAS WITH COMMERCIAL POTENTIAL
TO CROSS THE KNOWLEDGE FILTER
Government Academic
R&D Spending Research Research
Uncommercialised Knowledge
Knowledge Filter barriers created by law, information

asymmetries, etc., that prevent ideas from being commercialised
Commercialised Knowledge
An example for Figure 3.3, is an employee from an established large corporation, or

university, often a scientist or engineer working in a research laboratory, who will have an
idea for an invention and ultimately for an innovation. Accompanying this potential innovation
is an expected net return from the new product. The knowledge worker would expect to be
compensated for her potential innovation accordingly. However, the company has a different,
presumably lower, valuation of the potential innovation since it does not understand its
commercial potential (asymmetry of information). Hence it may decide either not to pursue it’s
the product’s development, or that its development merits a lower level of compensation than
that expected by the employee.
In either case, the knowledge worker will weigh the alternative of starting her own firm. If the
gap in the expected return accruing from the potential innovation between the inventor and
the corporate decision maker is sufficiently large, and if the cost of starting a new firm is
sufficiently low, the employee may decide to leave the large corporation and establish a new
enterprise. Cost of starting a new firm may be sufficiently low if institutions such as the Small
Business Administration offer her seed money to start up, and there are favourable
intellectual property regulations, i.e. regulations which allow employees to start up companies
in similar areas of work as their former employer. Such start-ups typically do not have direct
access to a large R&D laboratory, yet are able to start up when there are sufficient
institutions, regulations and non-trivial asymmetries. Thus, countries that are richer in
knowledge and have a more porous knowledge filter will offer more entrepreneurial
opportunities and, therefore, should also induce more entrepreneurial activity. By contrast,
those contexts that offer a more closed knowledge filter will offer only meagre entrepreneurial
opportunities generated by knowledge spillovers, and therefore would induce less
entrepreneurial activity.
It is the knowledge filter that impedes investments in knowledge from spilling over for
commercialisation that leads to the so-called Swedish Paradox and European Paradox.
Europe was not alone in having investments in knowledge choked off from resulting in
economic growth by the knowledge filter. The United States has also not been able to avoid
the knowledge filter. In fact, the knowledge filter impeding the commercialisation of
investments in research and knowledge can be formidable. As Senator Birch Bayh warned, “A
wealth of scientific talent at American colleges and universities -- talent responsible for the
development of numerous innovative scientific breakthroughs each year -- is going to waste
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as a result of bureaucratic red tape and illogical government regulations…”95 It is the
knowledge filter that stands between investment in research on the one hand, and its
commercialisation through innovation, leading ultimately to economic growth, on the other.
Seen through the eyes of Senator Bayh, the magnitude of the knowledge filter was certainly
daunting, “What sense does it make to spend billions of dollars each year on government-
supported research and then prevent new developments from benefiting the American people
because of dumb bureaucratic red tape?”96
Confronted with a formidable knowledge filter, which impedes the spillover of knowledge from
the firm or organisation where it was originally generated, public policy instruments to
promote investment in knowledge, such human capital, R&D, and university research may not
adequately generate economic growth. One interpretation of the European Paradox, where
such investments in new knowledge have certainly been substantial and sustained, but
vigorous growth and reduction of unemployment have remained elusive, is that the presence
of such an imposing knowledge filter chokes off the commercialisation of those new
knowledge investments, resulting in diminished innovative activity and ultimately stagnant
growth.
By choking off the spillover and commercialisation of knowledge and new ideas, the
knowledge filter at the same time presents opportunities for individuals, or teams of
individuals, that might place a high valuation on the potential of that knowledge, to become
entrepreneurs. If people are not able to pursue and implement their ideas and vision within
the context of an incumbent firm or organisation, in order to appropriate the value of her
knowledge and ideas, the agent would need to start a new firm, that is to become an
entrepreneur.
The entrepreneurial startup reflects knowledge spillover entrepreneurship because the ideas
serving as the basis for the startup were obtained, typically for little or no cost, from a
different, incumbent firm or organisation. Thus, knowledge spillover entrepreneurship serves
as a conduit for the spillover new ideas generated created by an incumbent organisation but
left uncommercialised.
The knowledge spillover theory of entrepreneurship, suggests that contexts which are rich in
97
knowledge will tend to generate more entrepreneurial opportunities. Fewer entrepreneurial
opportunities will be generated in a context with a lower amount of investment in new ideas
and knowledge. By contrast, those contexts that have less knowledge will generate fewer
entrepreneurial opportunities. A consequence of globalisation, which has shifted the
comparative advantage of developed countries from physical capital to knowledge capital, is
that entrepreneurial opportunities become more pervasive.98
3.5 Entrepreneurship Policy

In distinguishing entrepreneurship policy from more traditional approaches towards business,
a shift has occurred away from the focus on the traditional triad of policy instruments
essentially constraining the freedom of firms to contract -- regulation, competition policy and
public ownership of business. The policy approach of constraint was sensible as long as the
major issue was how to restrain large corporations in possession of considerable market
power. That this policy approach towards business is less relevant in a global economy is
reflected by the waves of deregulation and privatisation throughout the OECD.
Probably the greatest and most salient change in small business policy over the last 15 years
has been a shift from trying to preserve small businesses that are confronted with a cost
disadvantage due to size inherent scale disadvantages, towards promoting the startup and
viability of new and small firms involved in the commercialisation of knowledge, or knowledge-
based entrepreneurship.
Entrepreneurship policy is a relatively new phenomenon. An important distinction should be
made between the traditional small business policies and entrepreneurship policies. Small
business policy typically refers to policies implemented by a ministry or government agency
charged with the mandate to promote small business. The actual definition of a small
business varies considerably across countries, ranging from enterprises with fewer than 500
employees in some of the most developed countries, such as the United States and Canada,
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to fewer than 250 employees in the European Union, to 50 employees in many developing
countries.
Small business policy typically takes the existing enterprises within the appropriate size class
as exogenous, or given, and then develops instruments to promote the viability of those
enterprises. Thus, small business policy is almost exclusively targeted towards the existing
stock of enterprises and virtually all of the instruments included in the policy portfolio are
designed to promote the viability of the small business.
By contrast, entrepreneurship policy has a much broader focus. There are at least two
important ways that distinguish entrepreneurship policy from small business policy. The first is
the breadth of policy orientation and instruments. While small business policy has a focus on
the existing stock of small firms, entrepreneurship policy is more encompassing in that it
includes potential entrepreneurs. This suggests that entrepreneurship policy is more focussed
on the process of change, regardless of the organisational unit, whereas small business
policy is more static in nature and remains focussed on the enterprise level. Entrepreneurship
policy also has a greater sensitivity to framework or contextual conditions that shape the
decision-making process of entrepreneurs and potential entrepreneurs.
While small business policy is primarily concerned with one organisational level, the
enterprise, entrepreneurship policy encompasses multiple units of organisation and analysis.
These range from the individual to the enterprise, and to the cluster or network, which might
involve an industry or sectoral dimension, or a spatial dimension, such as a district, city,
region, or even an entire country. Just as each of these levels is an important target for policy,
the interactions and linkages across these disparate levels are also important. In this sense,
entrepreneurship policy tends to be more systemic than small business policy. However, it is
important to emphasise that small business policy still remains at the core of entrepreneurship
policy.
The second way distinguishing entrepreneurship policy from traditional small business policy
is that virtually every country has a ministry or governmental agency charged with promoting
the viability of the small business sector. These ministries and agencies have by now
developed a well-established arsenal of policy instruments to promote small business.
However, no such agencies exist to promote entrepreneurship. Part of the challenge of
implementing entrepreneurship policy is that no country has yet to introduce an agency
mandated with the charge of promoting entrepreneurship. Rather, aspects relevant to
entrepreneurship policy can be found across a broad spectrum of ministries and agencies,
ranging from education to trade and immigration. Thus, while small business has agencies
and ministries that champion their issues, no analogous agency exists for entrepreneurship
policy.
Not only is entrepreneurship policy implemented by very different agencies than those
implementing either the traditional policy instruments constraining the freedom of firms to
contract, or those implementing traditional small business policy, but it involves a very
different and distinct set of policy instruments.
Not only are the instruments of entrepreneurship policy decidedly distinct from those
traditionally used towards business and small business in particular, but the locus of such
enabling policies is also different. The instruments constraining the freedom of firms to
contract -- antitrust, regulation and public ownership -- were generally controlled and used at
the federal or national level. By contrast, the instruments of entrepreneurship policy are
generally applied at the decentralised level of a state or city or local level and not at a national
or federal level.
Entrepreneurship policy ranges across a broad spectrum of instruments spanning taxes,
immigration, education, as well as more direct instruments such as the provision of finance or
training. If entrepreneurship policy can be viewed as the purposeful attempt to create an
entrepreneurial economy, entire institutions that were the cornerstone of the Solow Economy
are being challenged and reconfigured, at least throughout the OECD countries, to create the
entrepreneurial economy.
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3.6 Conclusion
Globalisation has ravaged the traditional post-war strategy that was so dependable for
ensuring economic growth, the creation and sustainability of high quality employment, and
overall prosperity. The comparative advantage for economic activity based on the factor of
physical capital has shifted away from the high-cost countries of (Western) Europe and North
America, wreaking havoc for workers employed in those traditional manufacturing industries.
Instead, the comparative advantage in Europe and North America has shifted towards
knowledge-based economic activity, which cannot be shifted around the globe to lower cost
locations. However, as first the Swedish Paradox and later the European Paradox indicate, a
public policy approach focusing solely on investments in knowledge, research and human
capital may not be sufficient to ensure that a return on those investments can be socially
appropriated in terms of jobs, growth and competitiveness. Rather, the knowledge filter may
impede investments in research, education, and human capital from spilling over to generate
innovations and commercialisation and ultimately economic growth.
Entrepreneurship can serve as a conduit facilitating the spillover and commercialisation of
knowledge, enabling society to realise a return on knowledge investments in terms of
employment, growth and competitiveness. Therefore, an important new role for growth policy
in the era of globalisation is to shape institutions and policies that will promote
entrepreneurship. Such policies span a broad spectrum of institutions and policy areas,
spanning education, family, immigration, health and security, to tax and finance.99 By linking
wealth creation from past investments into knowledge to subsequent investments in
knowledge and the creation of entrepreneurship policy, entrepreneurs can ensure the
sustainability of employment, growth and competitiveness by taking advantages of the
opportunities afforded by globalisation.
3.7 References
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knowledge filter and entrepreneurship in endogenous growth”, Working Paper 4783, London:
Center for Economic Policy Research.
Audretsch, D. 1995, Innovation and Industry Evolution. Cambridge, Mass.: MIT Press.
Audretsch, D. 2007. “Entrepreneurship Capital and Economic Growth”, Oxford Review of

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The Role of Scientist Entrepreneurship”. Discussion Papers on Entrepreneurship, Growth and
Public Policy 2006-11, Jena: Max Planck Institute of Economics, Group for Entrepreneurship,
Growth and Public Policy.
Audretsch, D., Keilbach, M., and Lehmann, E. 2006, Entrepreneurship and Economic Growth.
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Chandler, A. 1977. The Visible Hand: The Managerial Revolution in American Business.
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Galbraith, J. 1956. American Capitalism. Boston, Mass.: Houghton Mifflin.
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Geroski, E. 1989. “The Interaction Between Domestic and Foreign Based Entrants”, The
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Yamawaki, H.: 59–83. Amsterdam: North-Holland.
Lucas, R. 1993. “Making a Miracle”, Econometrica, 61, 251–72.
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Piore, M., and Sabel C. 1984. The Second Industrial Divide: Possibilities for Prosperity. New
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Prodi, R. 2002. “For a New European Entrepreneurship”, public speech, April 21st, Instituto
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Riesman, D. 1950. The Lonely Crowd. New Haven, Conn.: Yale University Press.
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Schumpeter, J. 1934. The Theory of Economic Development; and Inquiry into Profits, Capital,
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Scherer, F. 1970. Industrial Market Structure and Economic Performance. Chicago, Ill.: Rand
McNally.
Thuril, R., Grilo, I. 2006. “Determinants of Entrepreneurial Engagement Levels in Europe and
the US”, Working Paper 0702, Max Planck Institute of Economics.
Weiss, L. 1976. “Optimal Plant Scale and the Extent of Suboptimal Capacity”, in Essays on
Industrial Organisation in the Honor of Joe S. Bain, ed. R. T. Masson and P. D. Qualls: 126–
134. Cambridge, Mass.: Ballinger.
Whyte, W. H. 1960. The Organisation Man. Hammondsworth, Middlesex: Penguin.
78
2002, p. 1.
79
Scherer, 1970.
80
1934, p. 106.
81
1956, p. 86.
82
Riesman, 1950.
83
Whyte, 1960.
84
Piore and Sabel, 1984 and Chandler, 1977.
PAGE 64 OF 105
85
1976, p. 259.
86
Brown, Hamilton and Medoff, 1990; and Brown and Medoff, 1989.
87
Scherer, 1970.
88
Geroski, 1989.
89
Quoted from Scherer (1977): 980.
90
For example see Scherer, 1975.
91
http://www.sba.gov/aboutsba/sbahistory.html
92
Der Spiegel. 2004. “Bye-Bye‚ Made in Germany”. October 25.
93
This is referred to as Sektstimmung, or “sparkling wine mood”. In Süddeutsche Zeitung.
2006. “Angst vor Aufschwung ohne Jobs”. February 1.
94
Die Welt. 2006. “Merkel ist Gewarnt”. February 1.
95
Introductory statement of Birch Bayh, September 13, 1978, cited from the Association of
University Technology Managers Report (AUTM) 2004: 5.
96
Statement by Birch Bayh, April 13, 1980, on the approval of S. 414 (Bayh-Dole) by the US
Senate on a 91-4 vote, cited from AUTM 2004: 16.
97
Audretsch, 1995; and Audretsch et al., 2006.
98
Audretsch, 2007.
99
Ibid.
PAGE 65 OF 105
4. Special Topics: Charity and Happiness
By Arthur C. Brooks. Dr. Brooks is Louis A. Bantle Professor of Business and Government
Policy at Syracuse University.100
4.1 Introduction
Everyone knows that money doesn’t buy happiness. We hear this from the time we are
children, and are cautioned not to chase lucre instead of our real dreams and passions; not to
trade our family lives for our jobs; not to pin our hopes and dreams to striking it rich when our
real happiness is within the reach of an average, middle-class life. Empirically, this line of
thought is borne out by the data. Indeed, study after study has shown the following:101
When countries get richer over time, above basic levels of subsistence, citizens on average
do not get happier, even when prosperity gains are spread fairly evenly across the population.
Richer countries do not have happier citizens than poorer ones, except in cases of countries
that are miserably poor.
Individuals adapt very quickly to income increases, and do not get permanently happier when
they get richer.
As important as these conclusions are, they do not however describe all the possible ways to
‘buy happiness’, Indeed, when people dispose of their incomes -- whether these incomes are
high or low -- they can do so in many ways. The literature on income levels and happiness
says nothing about whether all types of spending are equally insignificant in their happiness
effects.
In point of fact, there is one kind of spending that does induce a tremendous amount of
happiness: charitable giving. The evidence is clear that gifts of money -- as well as gifts of
time -- to charitable organisations, houses of worship, and other worthy causes, brings
authentic happiness to givers. A growing body of experimental and survey data show quite
clearly that giving is an effective way to ‘buy happiness’, and both individuals and
communities can use this fact to raise their happiness levels quite reliably. This essay
presents the evidence on happiness and charity, summarises the research explaining why
giving causes human felicity, and draws several conclusions for policy.
4.2 Giving is Linked to Happiness: the Evidence

People who give charitably are happier than people who don’t. The 2000 Social Capital
Community Benchmark Survey (SCCBS) of approximately 30,000 American households in
more than 40 communities nationwide reveals that people who give money to charity are 12
percentage points more likely than non-givers to say they are very happy people (40 to 28
percent). Volunteers are 13 points more likely to be very happy than non-volunteers (44 to 31
percent). It doesn’t matter whether gifts of money go to religious or secular organisations. And
the more people give, the happier they get. If two people are identical in terms of income,
education, age, religion, politics, sex, and family -- but one volunteers once more than the
other each week -- the volunteer will be half again as likely to say he or she is “very happy”.102
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FIGURE 4.1. GIVING, VOLUNTEERING, AND SELF-REPORTS ON HAPPINESS
50%
45% 44%
Percent who say they are "very happy"
40%
40%
35%
31%
30% 28%
25%
20%
Givers Nongivers Volunteers nonvolunteers
Data: 2000 Social Capital Community Benchmark Survey
Not surprisingly, people who give are less likely than non-givers to experience unhappiness.
According to the University of Michigan’s Panel Study of Income Dynamics (PSID), while 30
percent of Americans who gave money in 2001 said they had felt “so sad nothing could cheer
[them] up” in the past month, 40 percent of non-givers had felt this way. Non-givers were two
thirds likelier than givers to have felt “hopeless”, and nearly twice as likely as givers to say
that they felt “worthless”. These differences persist even if givers and non-givers earn the
same amount of money and have the same personal characteristics.103
The happiest communities in America tend to be those in which people give and volunteer the
most. The SCCBS shows that in 2000, a ten-point increase in the percentage of citizens in a
community who give money to charity corresponds to an eight-point rise in the percentage
who say they are very happy. Even further, the extra ten points in giving correspond to a six-
point increase in the percentage of non-givers in a community who say they are very happy.
This suggests that even those who don’t give benefit from living in the happy places where
most people are charitable.104
The link between giving behaviour and happiness is not limited to the United States. The
International Social Survey Programme (ISSP) from 1998 showed that in America, 51 percent
of the population volunteered and 37 percent of people said they were very happy. Compare
this with Germany, where 19 percent volunteered and 18 percent were very happy, or Russia,
where 20 percent volunteered but only five percent were very happy. Obviously, there are
many forces explaining the happiness of citizens besides their volunteering (especially in a
country like Russia); still, the correlation is striking. Comparing the volunteering and
happiness in 32 countries, we find that a 10 percentage-point increase in the rate of
volunteering corresponds to a 3-point rise in the percentage of people who say they are very
happy.105
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FIGURE 4.2. VOLUNTEERING RATES AND PERCENTAGE OF POPULATIONS SAYING
THEY ARE “VERY HAPPY”
Data: International Social Survey Programme, 1998
Giving goes beyond formal gifts of money and time, of course. Donating blood, for instance, is
one particularly personal kind of giving. The 2002 General Social Survey (GSS) shows that
slightly more than 15 percent of Americans donate at least once each year. There is evidence
that this form of giving brings even greater happiness than financial charity does. In 2002,
people who gave blood two or more times during the year were 14 percentage points more
likely than non-donors to say they were very happy (43 to 29 percent). The same pattern
applies to many informal and nontraditional types of charity such as giving to a homeless
person on the street, giving directions to a stranger on the street, and so forth.106
Happiness researchers have looked at many population groups, historical periods, and
geographical regions, and have concluded that charitable people are happier people than
uncharitable people.107 It is simply unambiguous that giving is associated with happiness. But
does giving cause happiness? That is what the statistics seem to imply, or at least how they
are commonly interpreted. However, it is also possible that happy people simply tend to be
the most charitable. Or, it may well be that factors such as culture, faith, education, and family
values affects both happiness and the tendency to act charitably.
To prove that charity actually causes happiness, we need evidence on how people change
after they give to others, and because they have given. This comes from experiments on
giving -- experiments that have been conducted, and which show enormous positive life
108
changes that can be directly attributed to giving. In one study of senior citizens in the
Detroit area, researchers created an experiment in which the subjects were asked about their
happiness, and then given a set of volunteering opportunities they could choose according to
PAGE 68 OF 105
their interests. Six months later were asked whether they had volunteered for any of these
causes, and their happiness was measured again. The result was that a tremendous amount
of happiness was attributable to the volunteering experiences. The researchers found that
volunteering during just six months explained increases in morale, self-esteem, and sense of
social integration.109
4.3 Why Does Giving Bring Happiness?

Many people know intuitively that giving to others brings happiness, and the statistics cited
above may come as no major surprise. Perhaps more interesting than whether giving brings
happiness, is why this is so.
To begin with, there are physiological explanations for the connection between giving and
happiness. There is evidence that giving affects our brains in pleasurable and beneficial
ways. Starting in the 1980s, researchers began to accumulate evidence that people who
volunteer often report feelings of euphoria. Psychologists have referred to this as the ‘Helper’s
High’, and believed it was due to endorphins -- natural opioids in the brain that produce a mild
version of the sensations from artificial opiates like morphine and heroin.110
Further, charitable giving lowers stress, as measured in the cortisol, epinephrine, and
norepinephrine in the brain. In one experiment, adults were asked to give massages to babies
-- the idea being that giving a baby pleasure is a compassionate act with no expectation of a
reward -- even a ‘thank you’ -- in return. After they performed the massages, the seniors were
found to have markedly lower stress hormone levels. In fact, researchers discovered the
subjects enjoyed more stress-lowering effects from giving massages even than they did from
getting them.111
In several recent experiments, researchers have looked directly at the brain while people
engage in giving activities. This involves functional magnetic resonance imaging (fMRI): Test
subjects are put into narrow hollow tubes and asked, via an interactive computer, to make
decisions about whether they want to give to various charities or not. In one such study,
subjects were given a certain amount of money, and then asked whether they wanted to give
some of it to charitable organisations. Researchers found that the part of the brain activated
when people designated gifts was the same part that lit up when people received money
themselves.112
Charity also brings happiness for psychological reasons. For example, giving money and
volunteering time can provide an important means to ‘reboot’ mentally. Psychologists have
found that giving ‘crowds out’ unhappiness because our brains tend to focus on just one
problem at a time. In particular, the challenge of helping someone else tends to displace the
challenge of facing one’s own personal troubles. Giving and volunteering are thus highly
effective ways to redirect our energies away from our own problems.113
In addition to creating psychical and physiological wellbeing, giving almost certainly creates
happiness by bringing the favour of others. There is evidence that people are held in higher
esteem and rewarded when others see them behaving generously. In 2006, British
researchers conducted a laboratory experiment on cooperation, in which subjects were
brought together in small groups, given an equal amount of money, and asked individually to
decide whether to keep it or donate some part of it to a ‘group fund’. The researchers then
counted the money in each group fund, doubled it, and distributed it equally among each
group’s participants. The optimal strategy for a group was to put in all the money and thus
double each person’s earnings. But each individual had the incentive to ‘defect’ (not
contributing any of his own money to the group fund) while selfishly hoping the other group
members cooperate -- so that he could keep all his money and also get a part of the
others’.114
The British researchers found that most groups were fairly cooperative, especially if
individuals’ cooperation decisions were made in front of the others. Some people gave more
than others, however, donating more to the fund than they got back in return. The researchers
wanted to know how the others felt about these generous members. They investigated this
question with a second phase of the experiment, in which the individuals in each group were
individually asked to vote for a group leader. In more than 80 percent of the groups, they
elected the most generous member. The researchers concluded that, when people can
PAGE 69 OF 105
choose the people they will deal with, they prefer altruists over selfish people. But even more
importantly, the results imply that generosity and faith in others can be good for a person
professionally: These qualities signal that an unusually giving person deserves leadership. It
is hardly surprising that givers tend to be happier after they give if they are thus more
successful in life.
4.4 Giving Makes us Richer, Too 115

We saw at the outset of this essay that income does not deliver enduring happiness. There is
no evidence that income brings unhappiness, however, and many of us would like more
prosperity for reasons apart from sheer happiness. So it is still worth noting the emerging
evidence that giving brings financial benefits as well as psychological ones. Simply put, giving
appears to make us richer, both as individuals and groups.
There is a pervasive belief in America and many other places that philanthropy and prosperity
are inter-related. And this is not just the obvious economic point that higher income can lead
to higher giving. Rather, it is the religious or quasi-religious notion that giving itself drives
prosperity. In the words of Gaius the innkeeper in John Bunyan’s The Pilgrim’s Progress,
A man there was, tho' some did count him mad
the more he cast away, the more he had.
Gaius interprets the verse thus:
He that bestows his Goods upon the Poor

Shall have as much again, and ten times more.116
Economists have long shown that income and giving are positively correlated. Furthermore,
they have shown that higher income pushes up giving. Specifically, studies show that a ten
percent increase in income stimulates an increase in charitable donations in the
neighbourhood of seven percent, even after controlling for other factors, like education, age,
and race. What many believe, however, is that the correlation between income and giving is
not just one-way: that in addition to income increasing giving, giving increases income as
well.117
The data support this belief. For example, American survey data from 2000 indicate that,
controlling for education, age, race, and all the other outside explanations for giving and
income increases, a dollar donated to charity generated $3.75 in extra income. This is most
likely evidence that givers have certain characteristics that make them more economically
effective than non-givers for the reasons already discussed. It may also be an explanation for
average material prosperity levels that are consistently higher in America than in Europe.118
The financial advantages of giving do not stop with individual givers -- there is also evidence
that donations push up income even more at the level of the whole economy. We can
demonstrate this by looking at average household charity and GDP per capita as they change
over time. Charity and GDP levels have moved together over the years: Correcting for
inflation and population changes, U.S. Government data show that GDP per person in
America has risen over the past 50 years by about 150 percent. At the same time, donated
dollars per person have risen by about 190 percent. (See Figure 4.3.)
As in the case of individual income, the evidence is that GDP and giving are mutually
reinforcing: Economic growth pushes up charitable giving, and charitable giving pushes up
economic growth. For example, in 2004, $100 in extra income per American drove about
$1.47 in charitable giving, per person. At the same time, $100 in charitable giving stimulated
more than $1,800 in income. In short, giving has a positive role in American economic growth.
It is a good investment for our country -- some might even go so far as to say that charity is a
patriotic act.119
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FIGURE 4.3. REAL CHARITABLE GIVING AND INCOME PER CAPITA IN THE UNITED
STATES, 1954-2004
$800 $45,000
$700 $40,000
income $35,000
$600
$30,000
Per capita personal income

Annual giving per capita
$500
$25,000
$400
giving $20,000
$300
$15,000
$200
$10,000
$100 $5,000
$0 $0
1957 1962 1967 1972 1977 1982 1987 1992 1997 2002
Data: Giving USA Foundation, Statistical Abstract of the United States
4.5 Public Policy and Private Attitudes

All together, the research on giving puts paid to a common cynical claim about humans: that
we are naturally selfish. On the contrary, our brains, minds, and bodies experience
equilibrium and pleasure when we give. It clearly follows that we should try to maximise
charity in America and other nations if we are concerned about national happiness -- which is
to say, having the largest number of happy citizens. What can governments do on the level of
social policy to maximise charitable behaviour?
When we think of the role of the government in charitable giving, we generally think about tax
breaks. The U.S. Federal Government and state governments make money gifts to public
charities tax deductible: They do not function as taxable income, so long as taxpayers ‘itemise
deductions’, which is to say, they fill out a special tax form and forgo a standard, uniform tax
break. Then, she can take her donations off her taxable income -- meaning that the amount
she saves in taxes is the donations multiplied by her tax rate. So if she gives $1,000 and pays
a tax rate of 35 percent on her last dollar of income, her donation saves her $350 in taxes.
In most other developed countries, tax incentives for giving take the form of non-refundable
tax credits, which effectively give all taxpayers the same refund on their tax bill per dollar
donated. Tax credits are more equitable than deductions, because they do not treat the rich
any more kindly than the charitable non-rich.
Favourable tax treatment for charitable contributions is obviously worth keeping -- tax
deductions and credits induce a small amount of charitable giving at the margin, according to
most studies. But tax incentives are still irrelevant for many people. First, citizens who pay no
income tax cannot get a tax deduction, and this applies to at least a third of working adults in
the United States. Second, in America, Internal Revenue Service records show that only
about a third of people who file tax returns itemise their deductions -- which means that most
PAGE 71 OF 105
Americans (those who are middle class and below in particular) don’t even claim the
deductions to which they are entitled. Third, research shows that virtually nobody is motivated
meaningfully to give only because of our tax system. I’ve been doing research in this field for
many years, and I’ve never seen a tax break that can warm up a cold heart.120
The most productive focus for the government is probably not to create incentives for people
to give, but to figure out how to avoid disincentives to giving. Government impedes giving
behaviour all the time, making it difficult or even impossible to behave charitably. One way it
does so is through regulatory barriers. Take, for example, a 2006 policy adopted by Fairfax
County, Virginia, which barred residents from giving food to the homeless unless it was
prepared in a kitchen approved by the county. This disqualified the food being produced by
approximately half the operating shelters and churches that had previously fed the hungry in
that county. Officials argued that this measure was to prevent food poisoning, despite the fact
that food poisoning had never been reported from donated food. The result, however was that
the homeless were now more likely than before to eat out of the trash instead of church
kitchens -- and individuals would be less able to give.121
Government barriers to charity are not always so obvious, however. Governments can
discourage giving in more subtle ways as well. For example, when governments fund
nonprofits, this tends to displace private donations. This effect is most pronounced in
assistance to the poor and other kinds of social welfare services: When the American
government gives a human service agency $1, it displaces up to 40 cents in private
donations. Similar effects have been found in Canada and Great Britain. Likewise, when the
government gives $1 to an arts organisation, it lowers private giving to the organisation by
about 30 cents. The reason for this may have something to do with the behaviour of donors --
there is less perceived need when a non-profit gets a government grant. But even more, it is
related to the behaviour of nonprofits themselves, which tend to fundraise less when they
receive government subsidies.122
It turns out that the governments can displace private giving even if citizens think the state
should be providing services. In 1996, Americans who disagreed that “the government has a
responsibility to reduce income inequality” gave four times more money to charity than those
who agreed with this statement (see Figure 4.4). This was true for every type of charity, from
religion, to aid for the poor, to environmental protection. This pattern also extends to non-
money giving. In 2002, people who said we are spending “too much money on welfare” were
a third likelier to donate blood than those who said we are spending “too little”. Note that this
charity difference is not due to anything the government is actually doing; rather, to what
people think the government should be doing. In other words, for many Americans, a mere
belief about the government substitutes for private giving.123
PAGE 72 OF 105
FIGURE 4.4. AVERAGE ANNUAL GIVING BY AMERICANS ACCORDING TO
RESPONSES TO THE STATEMENT, “THE GOVERNMENT HAS A RESPONSIBILITY TO
REDUCE INCOME INEQUALITY”, 1996
$1,800 $1,637
$1,600
$1,400
$1,200
$978
$1,000
$800 Value of all gifts
$591
$600 Non-religious gifts only
$398 $389
$400 $320
$200 $140 $139 $132

$66
$0
Agree Agree Neither Disagree Disagree
strongly strongly
Source: General Social Survey, 1996
None of this means that the state should have no role in providing goods and services in our
society -- that would be an outlandish claim. Governments cannot be entirely replaced by
philanthropy, realistically. In 2002, various levels of government in the U.S. provided more
than $200 billion in funds to the American nonprofit sector as well as more than $40 billion in
tax revenues not collected because of the tax-deductibility of charitable contributions. This
puts government money at a roughly equal level with private giving. And in some areas, such
as social welfare, government money greatly exceeds private giving as a source of support.124
All together, the most reasonable claim is that government activity is not costless when it
comes to happiness, because it displaces significant amounts of private, voluntary giving. We
will always pay for some services through the public sector. However, if happiness is a
national goal, countries ought to be working to expand private giving as much as possible,
and vigilant against creating barriers to charity.
4.6 Who are the Givers?

In most happiness indices, the United States does very well by international standards. There
are many reasons for this. One of them is that the U.S. is an exceptionally charitable country.
Americans privately gave nearly $300 billion to charity in 2006 -- more than the entire GDP of
some of the countries of Europe.125
The average American is a giver. More than three-quarters of total American charity comes
from private individuals, as opposed to foundations, corporations or bequests. Surveys
consistently find that between 65 and 85 percent of U.S. families make charitable donations
each year. Among the families that gave, the average amount donated to charity in 2003 was
more than $1,800. And contrary to what one might assume, it is not the case that this giving
goes all -- or even mostly -- to churches. Only about a third of individual gifts go toward
religion, such as support for houses of worship. The rest goes to secular activities, such as
education, health, and social welfare. 126
Still, not everyone in America gives: Approximately 30 million American families decline to
give away money each year. And these families tend not to make up for it with other, non-
financial forms of giving, either. On the contrary, people who give formally to charity are the
ones who give informally as well: Money donors are nearly three times as likely to give money
informally to friends and strangers as non-donors are. People who give to charity at least
PAGE 73 OF 105
once per year are twice as likely to donate blood as people who don’t give money. They are
also significantly more likely to give food or money to a homeless person.
Not surprisingly, the fault lines between charitable America and uncharitable America lie very
close to the fault lines between happy America and unhappy America. Political ideology is
one factor in both divides: people on the political right are generally both happier and more
charitable than those on the left. In the year 2000, households headed by a self-identified
‘conservative’ gave, on average, 30 percent more dollars to charity than households headed
by a ‘liberal’ (where ‘liberal’ has the American connotation of left-wing politics), even though
the average conservative family has a slightly lower income than the average liberal family.
Volunteering levels are virtually the same between conservatives and liberals, but in most
other non-money ways, conservatives outpace their liberal and moderate counterparts. For
example, if liberals and moderates gave blood like conservatives do, the blood supply in the
U.S. would increase by nearly half.127
Political conservatives are also significantly happier than liberals, on average. Indeed, in
2004, Americans who said they were conservative or very conservative were nearly twice as
likely to say they were very happy as people who called themselves liberal or very liberal (44
percent versus 25 percent). Further, a 2007 survey found that 58 percent of American
Republicans rated their mental health as “excellent”, versus 43 percent of political
independents and just 38 percent of Democrats.128
Religious faith plays an even greater role than politics in both happiness and charitable
behaviour. In 2000, religious Americans (those who attended a house of worship weekly or
more) were 21 percentage points more likely to donate money each year than secularists
(who attended seldom or never), and gave away 3.5 times more money -- despite having the
same average incomes. They gave significantly more to both religious and secular charities,
and also gave far more in informal ways such as volunteering and donating blood. These
facts favour conservatives, not because something about right-wing politics makes people
generous, but rather because there are nearly four times as many religious conservatives as
there are religious liberals. In truth, religious liberals are every bit as generous as religious
conservatives -- there are simply fewer of them in America today.129
Religious people of all faiths are happier than secularists, on average. In 2004, 43 percent of
religious folks said they were “very happy” with their lives, versus 23 percent of secularists.
Religious people are a third more likely than secularists to say they are optimistic about the
future. Secularists are nearly twice as likely as religious people to say, “I am inclined to feel I
am a failure”.130
But even beyond one’s political views or religious affiliation, it is a simple fact that charity by
itself makes individuals happier. Even if two people are identical in religious attendance,
political views (as well as marital status, income, education, race, age, and everything else
that might be relevant), but one gives money or volunteers while the other doesn’t, the giver
will still be significantly happier than the non-giver, on average.131
4.7 Conclusion
If you asked me how you could be happier and I told you how to vote or worship, you might
reject my advice as unhelpful. Some things are -- or at least seem to be -- out of our control in
the short run. But if I told you to give to charity, I would be giving you good and practical
advice.
And what constitutes good personal advice also amounts to a sound policy prescription.
Nations wishing to attain greater felicity do well to institute policies that facilitate giving
behaviour, and avoid policies that discourage it. If happiness is a national priority, private
giving necessarily is as well.
100
This essay is adapted from several sections of the book Gross National Happiness: Why
Happiness Matters for America -- and How We Can Get More of It by Arthur C. Brooks. 2008.
Basic Books.
PAGE 74 OF 105
101
For a survey of the literature on this point, see Frey, Bruno S. and Alois Stutzer. 2002.
“What Can Economists Learn from Happiness Research?” Journal of Economic Literature,
40(2): 402-435.
102
Roper Center for Public Opinion Research. 2000. Social Capital Community Benchmark
Survey (SCCBS). http://www.roper.com
103
2001 PSID. In the Panel Study of Income Dynamics (PSID) Wave XXXII Computer File.
Ann Arbor, Mich.: ICPSR. http://simba.isr.umich.edu
104
2000 Social Capital Community Benchmark Survey. This analysis regresses the
population percentage giving to charity on the percentage saying they are very happy.
105
1998 International Social Survey Program (ISSP); “Zentralarchiv für Empirische
Sozialforschung”. This analysis regresses the population percentage volunteering for
charitable, political, or religious causes on the percentage saying they are very happy.
106
Davis, James Allan, Tom W. Smith, and Peter V. Marsden. 2004. General Social Surveys
(GSS), 1972-2004 GSS: Cumulative CodeBook. Chicago, Ill.: National Opinion Research
Center.
107
See, for example, Wilson, David Sloan, and Mihaly Csikszentmihalyi. 2006. “Health and
the Ecology of Altruism”. In The Science of Altruism and Health, ed. S. G. Post: 6. Oxford:
Oxford University Press; and
Dulin, P.L., and R.D. Hill. 2003. “Relationships between altruistic activity and positive and
negative affect among low-income older adult service providers”. Aging & Mental Health 7(4):
294-299.
108
Much of this research is documented in Post, Stephen, and Jill Niemark. 2007. Why Good
Things Happen to Good People: The Exciting New Research that Proves the Link Between
Doing Good and Living a Longer, Healthier, Happier. New York: Broadway.
109
Midlarsky, Elizabeth, and Eva Kahana. 1994. Altruism in Later Life. Newbury Park, CA:
Sage Publications, Chapter 6.
110
Luks, Alan. 1992. The Healing Power of Doing Good: The Health and Spiritual Benefits of
Helping Others. New York: Fawcett; and
Luks, Alan. 1988. “Helper’s High: Volunteering Makes People Feel Good, Physically and
Emotionally. And Like ‘Runner’s Calm’, It’s Probably Good for Your Health”. Psychology
Today 22(10): 34-42.
111
Field, T., Hernandez-Reif, M., 0. Quintino, S. Schanberg and C. Kuhn. 1998. “Elder Retired
Volunteers Benefit from Giving Massage Therapy to Infants”. Journal of Applied Gerontology
17: 229-239.
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112
Moll, Jorge, Frank Krueger, Roland Zahn, Matteo Pardini, Ricardo de Oliveira-Souza, and
Jordan Grafman. 2006. "Human Fronto-Mesolimbic Networks Guide Decisions About
Charitable Donation”. Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences 103(42): 15,623-
15,628; and
Vedantam, Shankar. “If It Feels Good To Be Good, It Might Be Only Natural”. Washington
Post, May 28, 2007: A1.
113
Baker S.C., C.D. Frith and R.J. Dolan. 1997. “The Interaction Between Mood and
Cognitive Function Studied with PET”. Psychological Medicine 27(3): 565-78.
114
Hardy, C., and Van Vugt, M. 2006. “Nice Guys Finish First: The Competitive Altruism
Hypothesis”. Personality and Social Psychology Bulletin 32: 1402-1413.
115
This section is adapted from Brooks, Arthur C. 2006. Who Really Cares: The Surprising
Truth About Compassionate Conservatism, Chapter 8. New York: Basic Books.
116
Bunyan, John. 1909-14. The Pilgrim’s Progress, ed. Charles Eliot, Vol. XV, Part 1, The
Harvard Classics: 521-522. New York: P.F. Collier and Son.
117
McClelland, Robert and Arthur C. Brooks. 2004. “Comparing Theory and Evidence on the
Relationship Between Income and Charitable Giving”. Public Finance Review 32, no. 5: 483-
497.
118
This conclusion is the product of a two-stage least squares regression, in which income is
regressed on a vector of demographics and a fitted value of charitable donations. This fitted
value comes from a regression of donations on volunteer time plus appropriate
demographics. See Brooks, Arthur C. 2007. “Does Giving Make Us Prosperous?” Journal of
Economics and Finance 31(3): 403-411.
119
Data in this discussion come from the Statistical Abstract of the United States (various
years), and historical giving data from Indiana University’s Center on Philanthropy. I infer
causality through the use of Granger tests, in which I regress real GDP per capita on current
real giving per capita, three annual lagged values of giving, and three annual lags in GDP.
120
Internal Revenue Service. 2002. “Selected Itemized Deductions, Schedule A, 1990-2000”.
(http://www.irs.gov/pub/irs-soi/01inded.pdf); and
Rooney, Patrick M., Kathryn S. Steinberg and Paul G. Schervish. 2001. “A Methodological
Comparison of Giving Surveys: Indiana as a Test Case”. Nonprofit and Voluntary Sector
Quarterly 30(3): 551-568.
121
Balko, Rodney. November 29, 2006. “The Road to Hell…” Reason Online.
http://www.reason.com/blog/show/116966.html
122
Brooks, Arthur C. 2000. “Is There a Dark Side to Government Support for Nonprofits?”
Public Administration Review 60(3): 211-218.
123
See Brooks, Arthur. 2006. Who Really Cares: Chapter 3. New York: Basic Books.
PAGE 76 OF 105
124
Rushton, Michael, and Arthur C. Brooks. 2006. “Government Funding of Nonprofit
Organisations”. In An Integrated Theory of Nonprofit Finance, ed. Dennis R. Young. Lanham,
MD: Lexington Books.
125
Giving USA Foundation 2007, Giving USA. Glenview, IL: Giving USA Foundation. The
data in this section are contained and described in Brooks, Arthur. 2006. Who Really Cares.
New York: Basic Books.
126
2003 Center on Philanthropy Panel Study / Panel Study of Income Dynamics.
127
See Brooks, Arthur. 2006. Who Really Cares, Chapter 2.
128
2004 General Social Survey. Gallup. November 30, 2007. “Republicans Report Much
Better Mental Health Than Others”. http://www.gallup.com/poll/102943/Republicans-Report-
Much-Better-Mental-Health-Than-Others.aspx
129
When we regress charitable giving on political beliefs, religious behavior, family structure,
and other demographics, the difference between liberals and conservatives becomes
statistically insignificant.
130
2004 General Social Survey.
131
2000 SCCBS.
PAGE 77 OF 105
5. Special Topics: The Role of Freedom and Control in
Explaining Happiness
By Paolo Verme. Paolo Verme is a professional development economist and is a contract
Professor of Economics at the University of Turin and at Bocconi University in Milan.
5.1 Introduction
The question of what makes people happy has puzzled human beings since ancient times but
it is only very recently that hard data on happiness and quantitative research into the causes
of happiness have emerged. Initially considered as a peripheral area of economics,
happiness research is now becoming more popular and mainstream.
This paper fits into this recent tradition and explores further the possible causes of happiness.
Making use of a very large world database, we questioned the data in an effort to isolate
predictors of happiness which could be considered as universal, i.e. predictors that appear to
be always significant across heterogeneous countries and across heterogeneous individuals.
We find only one predictor with these features. This is a variable that measures freedom of
choice and control over the outcome of one’s own choices.
Drawing from research in economics and psychology, the paper provides a framework and a
possible explanation of why a variable which measures jointly freedom and control can be so
powerful in explaining happiness.
Our hypothesis is that the appreciation of freedom of choice depends on the degree of control
that individuals think to have over the outcome of their own choices, a concept known in
social psychology as the ‘locus of control’. Control over choice may act as a regulator of how
people appreciate freedom. The more control we think we have over our own choices the
more we appreciate and exploit freedom of choice. In one sentence, freedom is nothing
without control. This paper provides a framework to understand the relation between freedom,
control and happiness and some initial evidence on this relation.
The paper is organised as follows. In section II we question the database we dispose of to
pinpoint the best predictors of happiness. In section III, we discuss the concept of freedom of
choice from the perspective of economics. In section IV we draw on social psychology to
propose a possible interpretation of the concept of control and an hypothesis that could
explain why control associated with freedom becomes a powerful predictor of happiness.
Section V provides a test to the claim that a variable which measures freedom and control
jointly actually accounts for both concepts. Section VI concludes by looking at the implications
for institutions and public policies.
5.2 A Universal Predictor of Happiness?

During the last four decades research across the social sciences has made tremendous
progress in pinpointing the elements which seem to explain or predict subjective wellbeing
well. The World Database of Happiness, for example, lists hundreds of factors which have
been found to be correlated with various measures of subjective wellbeing.132
There are a few factors in particular which seem to explain subjective wellbeing consistently
across countries and across individuals with different characteristics. There is little
controversy, for example, about the fact that poor health and unemployment are associated
with lower levels of wellbeing and that factors such as income, marriage and religion are
associated with higher levels.133
Yet, even the most recurrent predictors of subjective wellbeing do not seem to apply
universally and under all conditions. One example is income. People and countries with
higher income are generally found to be happier,134 but this relation is not entirely linear and
does not seem to hold over time and over the life-cycle.135 Over and above a certain level of
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income more income ‘returns’ little extra happiness and rich countries which become richer do
not seem to be able to improve average subjective wellbeing. Even the same individuals over
their own life-cycle do not seem to increase wellbeing when their own income increases. This
paradox has been explained with various theories mainly centred around the role of the
reference group and the role of expectations. People value their own income relatively to the
income of a self-selected reference group and adjust expectations accordingly.
Is there a universal predictor of happiness? Can we rank predictors of subjective wellbeing in
order of importance and are there consistent and universal predictors?
These are questions difficult to address because surveys on happiness within countries are
hardly comparable while cross-country studies are often limited in scope. Exceptions to these
rules are the European Barometer, the European Values Survey and the World Values
Surveys. These are surveys that from their inception have aimed at surveying large numbers
of individuals across large numbers of countries making use of the same questionnaire and
methodology.
In this paper, we use a combination of all European and World Values Surveys carried out
between 1981 and 2004 which have been assembled into a single database freely available
on the world wide web.136 The database is regularly updated and the version we use is a 2006
version which contains 267,870 observations on individuals from 84 countries where each
country has been surveyed from a minimum of one to a maximum of four times. Other than its
extended coverage, the great advantage of this database is that it contains over 800 variables
which can be used as possible predictors of subjective wellbeing ranging from individual and
household characteristics to values and social norms. The fact that the survey is administered
on individuals and the presence of country and regional variables also allows the researcher
to work across individuals, regions or countries which is a convenient feature if the purpose is
to study both individual and social welfare.
The database contains several questions on happiness and life-satisfaction which can be
used to measure subjective wellbeing. We opted to use the following question on life
satisfaction:
All things considered, how satisfied are you with your life as a whole
these days?
Answers to this question include a ten steps ladder where ‘1’ stands for ‘Dissatisfied’ and ‘10’
stands for ‘Satisfied’. This is a rather standard question used in happiness research
worldwide and validation studies carried out across the social sciences have proved that
answers are reliable.137
We then asked the question of whether we could trace a single variable which, across
countries and people, could be considered as the best predictor of happiness. To answer this
question we carried out two simple, time consuming but revealing exercises.
The first exercise consisted in taking all possible predictors of life satisfaction present in the
database one by one, measure the covariance with life satisfaction and rank all variables
according to their explanatory power. This was done running a bivariate OLS regression
between the life satisfaction variable and each of the possible predictors across the pooled
world sample of individuals which amounted to more than 800 separate regressions. From the
results of each equation we extracted the R-squared (the statistics that measures the
proportion of variation in life satisfaction which is explained by the chosen variable). We then
ranked variables in decreasing order of the R-squared to find the best predictors of life
satisfaction.
Results of this first exercise were as follows. In the top ten positions of the ranking we found,
as expected, a number of proxies of life satisfaction such as happiness or satisfaction with
income, family or job. These were all variables which we can safely exclude as predictors of
happiness because they are measures of happiness themselves. They are either proxies or
components of life satisfaction.
The first non proxy variable occupied the 7th position in the overall ranking and was a variable
which recorded the answers to the following question:
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Please use this scale where 1 means ‘none at all’ and 10 means ‘a
great deal’ to indicate how much freedom of choice and control you
feel you have over the way your life turns out.
This is a variable which has been used before in happiness studies138 but which received very
little attention as compared to many other predictors of happiness. We will call this variable
‘freedom&control’.
In our ranking, the best known predictors of happiness all featured in high positions but far
lower than the variable freedom&control. For example, subjective health occupied the 15th
place and income rank the 25th place.139 However, freedom&control had an R-squared of
0.165 as compared to a value for subjective health of 0.087 and of 0.041 for income rank.
Freedom&control seemed to explain life satisfaction twice as well as subjective health and
four times as well as income rank.
We initially thought that results might have been affected by the different samples of the
different variables. Not all variables were observed in all countries and all years. However, all
the main variables described had more than 200,000 observations and the variable
freedom&control could count on almost 250,000 observations, the quasi-totality of the full
sample.
The bivariate relation between life satisfaction and freedom&control holds not only across the
pooled world sample of individuals but also across countries. This can be appreciated by
plotting average life satisfaction by country against average freedom&control. This is done in
Figure 5.1 below where we also trace a quadratic interpolation of the data. As it can be seen,
the relation between life satisfaction and freedom&control holds across countries and is
clearly linear. Countries with higher average levels of freedom&control are also countries that,
on average, are happier. The variable freedom&control seems to be able to explain well both
individual and social welfare.
PAGE 80 OF 105
FIGURE 5.1. LIFE SATISFACTION VS. FREEDOM&CONTROL
These initial findings led us to our second exercise. This consisted in selecting a set of good
predictors of happiness and test their importance jointly together with a number of variables
that could control for individual and country characteristics. For this purpose, we used the
results of the bivariate regressions carried out before and the literature on happiness to select
among all variables we disposed of a set of best predictors of life satisfaction. To make sure
that our results would be representative for most countries, we restricted the choice of
variables to those that had a minimum of 200,000 observations in the database.
The final choice of variables included the following variables: freedom&control, income rank,
status of unemployed, gender, age, tertiary education, married status, attitudes towards tax
cheating, trust in people, trust in institutions, importance of family, importance of work,
importance of religion, importance of politics and controls for years and countries. We could
then test the importance of the variable freedom&control vis-a-vis other variables and
controlling for individual and country heterogeneity.
Using the set of variables described, we carried out first a multivariate regression pooling
again all observations from all countries together. We then repeated the exercise separately
for each country present in the database, which disposed of all the variables described. This
was a set of 74 countries out of a total of 84 countries present in the original database.
The full results for all equations cannot be shown here. However, table A1 in the annex shows
the full results for the pooled world sample while table A2 shows the full results for ten
selected and representative countries. All regressions were estimated using the most
restrictive of the specifications, with year and country dummies, robust standard errors and
regional clusters. Table 5.1 below summarises the results.
On the left hand side of table 5.1 we show the summary results for the pooled world
regression (table A1). For simplicity, we ranked all explanatory variables used in the
regression in order of the z-score. In general, if a variable shows a z-score above three it is
considered significant and the greater the z-score the more significant thevariable. As it can
be seen, all variables selected for the equation are significant and freedom&control is, by far,
PAGE 81 OF 105
the most significant variable. This variable is followed by age, marriage, religion and trust in
institutions.
Note that the pooled sample includes country specific variables including GDP per capita and
the employment rate. GDP per capita also ranks high in the table.140 In particular, if we look at
table A2 where countries have been ordered from left to right in decreasing order of GDP per
capita, we can notice that the explanatory power of freedom&control decreases as GDP per
capita decreases. This is a point we will come back to in the concluding section of this paper.
On the right hand side of table 5.1 we show the summary results of the 74 regressions, which
we estimated for each country considered (ten selected countries are in table A2). This time
we report the number of countries in which each variable is significant and also whether the
variable is significant with a positive or negative sign. Variables are ranked according to the
number of times they are significant and with a positive sign. As before, freedom&control
ranks first. This variable is significant and with the same sign in all countries considered with
no exceptions. The second variable in terms of importance is marriage which is always
significant and with a positive sign but only in 54 countries. This is followed by trust in
institutions, age and religion.
TABLE 5.1. PREDICTORS OF HAPPINESS: SUMMARY OF RESULTS
Pooled World Sample Country Samples (No. of countries)

z-score Sign: (+) (-) Tot.
freedom and control 37.6 freedom and control 74 0 74
age squared 17.4 married 54 0 54
Married 16.4 trust in institutions 48 1 49
religion importance 13.3 age squared 43 0 43
trust in institutions 10.2 religion importance 36 3 39
gdp (000) 10.2 trust in people 30 0 30
family importance 8.8 income rank 29 2 31
income rank 7.8 family importance 23 2 25
work importance 6.4 female 20 2 22
trust in people 6.2 edutert 18 11 29
Female 4.9 work importance 11 5 16
Edutert 4.8 income rank squared 7 10 17
employment rate 2.9 politics importance 4 6 10
politics importance -3.0 unemployed 3 43 46
gdp squared (000) -3.7 age 1 57 58
Employment rate squared -3.7 tax cheat 1 27 28
income rank squared -4.8
tax cheat -9.4
Unemployed -16.9
Age -20.3
The strength of these findings may raise the suspicion that the variable freedom&control is,
after all, a proxy for happiness, a variable that measures happiness itself. The first obvious
answer to this question is that the two questions posed to respondents are very different as
PAGE 82 OF 105
shown by the text of the questions. Yet, answers to both questions are measured on a scale
from one to ten and some or most respondents may feel that the two concepts overlap.
A more formal test of this hypothesis implies comparing how a set of common variables
performs in explaining life satisfaction and freedom&control separately. For this purpose, we
repeated the estimations we made for life satisfaction in table A1 swapping the place of life
satisfaction and freedom&control (i.e. using freedom&control as the dependent variable and
life satisfaction as an explanatory variable) and keeping the rest of explanatory variables as in
table A1.
Results are shown in table A3. If we compare the coefficients and the z-score of each variable
between tables A1 and A3 we can see that 10 of the 19 variables considered change sign in
the freedom&control equation and four of the remaining variables turn from significant to non
significant. We can therefore exclude that the variables life satisfaction and freedom&control
measure the same concept or are understood by respondents as the same question.
In the next two sections we propose a framework which can help to understand what the
variable freedom&control actually measures and to explain why such a variable may have
such a powerful role in explaining life satisfaction.
5.3 Freedom of Choice

We have seen that the question addressed to respondents really captures two aspects. One
is ‘freedom of choice’ and the second is ‘control you feel you have over the way your life turns
out’. In this section we look more in detail at the concept of freedom of choice. The next
section will address the question of control.
What is freedom of choice and how do people value freedom of choice? We could simply
define freedom of choice as the opportunity to choose among different alternatives. How
people value this opportunity is a matter of dispute.
Economics has provided different hypotheses on how people may appreciate freedom of
choice. Orthodox economic theory would argue for example that freedom or the number of
alternatives in a choice set is not very important per se. It is important because more choice
increases the likelihood of finding the choice that maximises utility. What matters, however, is
that the set of alternatives contains the option which maximises utility. If my preferred cake is
a chocolate cake, I will not maximise my satisfaction if I can choose among 100 different
cakes with no chocolate inside. On the contrary I can maximise my utility even with a single
choice option if this choice is a chocolate cake. This view generally considers individuals
identical, all with the same tastes.
A second view is that more choice is always good and this applies universally and in a
uniform way to all individuals. According to this view, all people and irrespective of individual
characteristics, would appreciate more freedom even if they do not make use of freedom.
This is a recurrent view for example of liberalists, anarchists or politicians who wish to ride the
freedom political horse. This relation could be simply depicted as a linear relation between
freedom and happiness as shown in the left panel of Figure 5.2 below.
A third view is that freedom of choice is always good but people are different and have a
different appreciation of freedom of choice. One example would be Sen's capability theory
where freedom of choice contributes to define utility in a world of heterogeneous individuals.
In this case, individuals are different in preferences and an increase in choice has a different
impact on individuals but this impact is always positive. More freedom is always better. This is
illustrated in the right panel of Figure 5.2 where the relation between happiness and freedom
is linear for both individuals ‘b1’ and ‘b2’ but the slope (the elasticity) of the relation is
different. As freedom increases, individual ‘b1’ will always be able to ‘extract’ more happiness
from an increase in freedom than individual ‘b2’ and will be happier than ‘b2’ at each level of
freedom.
FIGURE 5.2. HAPPINESS AND FREEDOM ACCORDING TO DIFFERENT VIEWS
PAGE 83 OF 105
Freedom Freedom
b2
b b1
Happiness Happiness
A further view is that preferences for freedom of choice change across individuals so that
increasing the choice set may have positive or negative consequences on happiness. Various
explanations have been offered for such kind of attitude. One is that enlarging the choice set
leads to an increased computational cost for individuals so that at some point individuals self-
restrict the choice problem to be able to take a decision. In economics, this is the well known
concept of bounded rationality pioneered by Simon. Others have argued that increasing the
choice set increases the likelihood of disappointment for choosing a wrong alternative (Bell
1985) or the regret for foregone options (Bell 1982). Indeed, various experiments have shown
that consumers may be adverse to excessive choice. For example, Iyengar and Lepper, and
Jiang and Huberman, have shown that some consumers prefer not to make a choice if the
choice set is too large.
These last explanations of why some individuals may not favour an increase in the choice set
have to do with the degree of control that individuals can exercise on choices or the outcome
of choices. The increase in computational costs or the increase in regret for foregone options
leads to a loss of control over choice which leads to an incapacity to make a choice. One
simple example of this phenomenon is the menu in a restaurant. Few options may not satisfy
our taste but too many options may lead to an incapacity to decide what to order.
The next section turns to the second component of our freedom&control variable, the
question of control. We put forward an hypothesis about what control may actually be, how it
is measured and how may relate to freedom.
5.4 Freedom with Control: the ‘Sails’ Hypothesis

Social psychologists have offered one interesting way to interpret and measure control. They
argue that people have different perceptions about the degree of control that they have over
choice. Rotter, for example, has distinguished between people who attribute the outcomes of
their actions to internal factors such as choices made and own capacities (the ‘internals’) and
people who tend to attribute the outcome of their actions to external factors such as fate or
destiny (the ‘externals’). This concept is known as the ‘locus of control’. Experiments on
university students have shown how individuals can be clearly separated into these two
groups and Rotter has devised a scale (known as the Rotter scale) to rank individuals
according to the degree of control that they think they exercise over choice. According to this
view, control is an individual feature and part of personality. Internals are believed to exhibit
particular attitudes such as high motivation for achievement and low outer-directedness as
opposed to externals whose motivation is reduced by the conviction that the outcome of their
life is driven by factors beyond their control.
How does control defined in these terms relate to freedom of choice? Our hypothesis is that
control acts as a regulator of the intrinsic value that people attribute to freedom of choice. The
more control we think we have over choice the more freedom of choice we can handle and
the more satisfaction we will derive from freedom of choice. The ‘internals’, those who think
that they have strong control over the outcome of their choices, should attribute more
importance to and extract more value from freedom of choice than the ‘externals’, those who
think that life is really driven by factors outside their own control.
PAGE 84 OF 105
If this is the case, we should also expect individuals to value freedom differently and
maximise the happiness extracted from freedom at different levels of freedom. As freedom of
choice expands, internals should value this more and reach a higher level of happiness and
utility than externals. We also expect all individuals to become freedom averse at some stage
when the individual valuation of the costs attached to more freedom outweigh the benefits.
A simple analogy may illustrate the point. Imagine juggling with balls. Some people are clearly
better than others the first time they try juggling but everyone starts with one ball and then
progressively graduates to more balls with training and practice. Eventually, all people will
reach a limit beyond which more practice and training will not turn into more balls. The point
where, by adding an extra ball, the juggling invariably fails. This is the point where we lose
control over juggling and where one extra ball reduces rather than increases our
performance.
This is similar with choice. Some people can deal with more simultaneous options than other
people and, in general, all people can improve the number of choices they can handle with
training and practice. However, at some stage, everyone reach a limit beyond which more
choice will result in no choice or decreased satisfaction or performance. This is the point
where we lose control over choice. We argue that this point may be different for ‘internals’ and
‘externals’.
We can illustrate this hypothesis with a graph (Figure 5.3) and describe it with another
analogy. We should think of people as sailing boats, freedom as the wind in the ocean,
control as the size and strength of the sails and happiness as the speed of the sailing boat.
The stronger is the wind the faster the boat can go. A boat (person) with larger and stronger
sails (control) will be able to go faster and further (happiness) but eventually any sail will
reach its breaking point (maximum), beyond which speed (happiness) will inevitably
decrease.
Suppose that we have two people, Mr. Green and Ms. Purple. Mr. Green is an ‘external’ who
values his own choices little and, we argued, has a low appreciation of freedom. Ms. Purple is
an ‘internal’ who values her own choices greatly and, we argued, has a high valuation of
freedom. Despite these differences, both Mr. Green and Ms. Purple will reach a level beyond
which more freedom turns into less happiness rather than more. This is the point where
maximum happiness is reached. But Ms. Purple who is endowed with more control than Mr.
Green will be able to exploit freedom better and reach highest levels of happiness.
FIGURE 5.3. HAPPINESS AND FREEDOM WITH DIFFERENT FLAVOURS OF CONTROL
This hypothesis which we will call the ‘Sails’ hypothesis implies that the value that people
attribute to freedom of choice cannot be assessed simply by looking at freedom of choice but
must be assessed by looking at freedom of choice in conjunction with control. If control is not
measured we cannot really assess how freedom turns into happiness. Indeed, our database
PAGE 85 OF 105
contains various variables, which measure different aspects of individual and collective
freedoms but none of these variables score as high as the freedom&control variable. In our
view, this could explain why a variable that measures both freedom of choice and control
simultaneously is such a powerful predictor of life satisfaction.
The ‘Sails’ hypothesis can also be extended from individuals to nations, from individual to
social welfare. Most scientists would agree that personality is a product of genetics and of
social upbringing and that social upbringing has to do with public policies. As countries differ
in terms of genetic stocks, family values, educational systems and public policies, we should
also expect countries to rank differently on the Rotter scale so that we could talk of ‘internal’
as opposed to ‘external’ countries. Such a finding would have important implications for public
policies, which determine changes in collective and individual freedom of choice.
5.5 Freedom and Control

So far, we have measured freedom and control in conjunction and also argued that it is this
interaction that delivers a powerful predictor of life satisfaction. However, we have no
evidence thus far that the variable freedom&control really captures both aspects of freedom
and control and not just one of them. We now make an effort to split these two concepts into
two separate measures and see the contribution of each measure to the aggregated variable
freedom&control.
The database we use does not contain direct measures of freedom of choice or direct
measures of control in the Rotter sense. We have therefore to either import direct measures
from other databases or construct proxies of freedom and control from within the database we
use.
For freedom, we do have in our database a few variables which measure partial freedoms
such as freedom of choice on the job but these variables cannot be taken as full measures of
freedom of choice and they are available only for selected countries and selected years. We
opted therefore to import in our database a measure of freedom constructed by other sources
and for this purpose we selected the economic freedom index developed by The Heritage
Foundation. This is an index which has been estimated for a number of years and puts
together the scores given to several dimensions of economic freedom including business,
trade, fiscal, government, monetary, investment, financial, property, corruption and labour
freedom. Full information on this index can be found on the website of the foundation.141 As
the Index is calculated for countries and years we take this measure as a measure of
collective rather than individual freedom of choice. We should also consider that this measure
is limited to economic aspects whereas freedom of choice extends well beyond economics.
As a proxy of control, which is primarily an individual feature of personality, we could instead
rely on several variables present in our database that could be taken as indicators of an
‘internal’ or ‘external’ personality. In particular, we selected two variables which we thought
represent well the ‘internals’ and two variables which we thought could represent the
‘externals’. To make sure that freedom of choice would relate to both the family and work
spheres, we extracted two variables from the family sphere and two variables for the work
sphere.
The choice of these variables was mainly driven by the description of the ‘internal’ and
‘external’ personalities provided by Rotter’s seminal paper (1966) and by the literature that
followed on the locus of control. ‘Internals’ tend to be individuals with an outer personality, a
strong will to achieve, independent thinking and self-confidence as opposed to ‘externals’ who
prefer to delegate responsibility, follow orders and go with the crowd. In our database,
respondents were questioned about the important values that children should have. Among
these values, we picked independence as a proxy for respondents with an ‘internal’
personality and obedience as a proxy for respondents with ‘external’ personality.
Respondents were also asked about important characteristics in a job and we picked
opportunity to use initiative as a feature that would be preferred by ‘internals’ and follow
instructions at work as a feature that would be preferred by ‘externals’. The matrix below
summarises our choices.
PAGE 86 OF 105
Family sphere Work sphere
Internals Important child quality: Important in a job:
Child Independence Opportunity to use initiative
Externals Important child quality: Important in a job:
Child obedience Follow instructions at work
To test whether the freedom&control variable is effectively correlated with both aspects of
freedom and control, we repeated the multivariate equation already used in table A3 where
the dependent variable is freedom&control and introduced as new explanatory variables the
five variables described, one for freedom and four for control. Summary results are shown in
table 5.2 below.
Economic freedom is positively correlated with freedom&control despite the fact that this
variable comes from an outside source and is measured aggregated by country (variance and
standard errors are more limited which makes it more difficult to find an association with a
variable measured at the individual level). The variables used to describe the internals are
both significant and with the expected positive sign. Instead, among the variables used to
describe the externals only ‘job instructions’ is significant and with the expected negative sign.
With the exception of ‘child obedience’, the variables selected would confirm that both the
aspects of freedom and control are captured by the variable freedom&control.
TABLE 5.2. FREEDOM&CONTROL EQUATION
Coeff. Std. Err. z-score

Freedom economic freedom 0.0179 0.0044 4.07
child
0.0637 0.0121 5.28
Internals independence
job initiative 0.1376 0.0118 11.71
child obedience -0.0073 0.0131 -0.56
Externals
job instructions -0.0456 0.0121 -3.77
Controls (omitted)
5.6 Institutions and Public Policies

We have already observed that variables such as marriage, religion and trust always rank
among the top positions in a life satisfaction equation. These are all factors that help to
increase the likelihood of being happy. These variables also describe some of the
fundamental institutions of any society.
In this section, we want to explore briefly how these and other fundamental institutions of a
society affect the way individuals value freedom and control. We have seen that many of the
variables that explain life satisfaction well do not explain freedom&control well despite the fact
that life satisfaction and freedom&control have a consistent linear relation.
For this purpose, we return to the multivariate equation which we already estimated for the
pooled sample of world citizens and look more closely at how institutional variables behave in
a life satisfaction equation vis-à-vis a freedom&control equation. Results are shown in table
A4.
The first four variables depict how individuals value family, work, religion and politics.
Individuals that consider family important have also higher degrees of life satisfaction
whereas these same individuals do not seem to enjoy a higher degree of freedom&control.
The variable ‘married’ reinforces this dichotomy. People who are married tend to be happier
while they tend to enjoy less freedom&control. This is intuitively correct as married people
PAGE 87 OF 105
enjoy less individual freedom and they may also feel less in control of life because of the
responsibilities associated with dependants such as spouses and children.
The same phenomenon is visible with religion and politics although with opposite signs.
People who value religion greatly are happier but enjoy less freedom&control. This is again
expected as religion may imply duties and values which restrict self-freedom. On the contrary,
people who value politics greatly tend to be less happy, a finding well known among
happiness researchers.142 However, they also tend to exhibit higher levels of freedom and
control which is less well known. Work instead does not distinguish happy from free people.
People who value work tend to be happier and also enjoy more freedom and control.
Two other variables we use depict trust in people and trust in institutions. These are variables
which have been used in the past to measure social capital and that have been found to be
positively correlated with happiness.143 We also find that both variables increase the likelihood
of being happy. We also find that both variables are associated with increased levels of
freedom&control.
Another variable which can be considered as a fundamental institution is education. We only
have a variable which indicates if respondents had tertiary education. This variable is
positively and significantly correlated with both life satisfaction and freedom&control.
Three variables measure individual economic attributes including unemployment and income
rank. These three variables are all significant and with the expected sign in the life satisfaction
equation but they are all non significant in the freedom&control equation. Unemployment
reduces happiness but does not seem to have a great effect on freedom&control while
income rank increases happiness without again any relevant impact on freedom&control. For
the unemployed we may think that they enjoy more freedom with time but probably less
choice on other fronts. Income instead generally provides more freedom of choice in many
domains such as consumption but not in others such as responsibilities.
Individual characteristics also account for the diversity in the life satisfaction and
freedom&control equation. In particular, being female which is associated with higher
happiness is also associated with lower degrees of freedom and control. This is not surprising
and may well be associated with domestic cores and family responsibilities.
These findings are important for public policies because if we try to improve an institution
which we know is positively correlated with happiness we may not actually improve happiness
as much as we would think if this same institution has a negative association with
freedom&control. The size or even the sign of the impact on life satisfaction will depend on
the balance between the positive direct effect of institutional improvements and the negative
indirect effect via freedom&control as shown in the chart below.
Life satisfaction
(-) (+)
Freedom&control Institutions
(-)
If the improvement of life satisfaction was an objective for governments, then one implication
of this research is that improving life satisfaction does not pass simply through the
improvements of institutions and freedom of choice but it is also related to improvements in
the capacity of individuals to control and value such changes.
For example, and according to our findings, improving trust among people and between
people and institutions can only be seen as a positive development given that an increase in
both types of trust are associated with increased happiness and increased freedom&control.
Freedom&control in this case reinforces the direct effect that better trust has on happiness.
The same can be said for tertiary education and work values. Improvements in these areas
can effectively lead to higher happiness in society via both direct and indirect effects. These
are win-win policies from the perspective of happiness.
PAGE 88 OF 105
Indeed, governments are fully aware of how important policies are such as education in
shaping people’s values and personalities. Take two examples, Japan and Italy. Japan has
long used education as a means to instil in pupils values such as obedience and respect.
More recently, Japan has been reconsidering some of its educational policies trying to foster
the development of creativity and initiative. Italy, on the other hand, has for long being a
country which encouraged creativity and paid less attention than Japan to values such as
obedience and respect in its educational system. However, the country is now reconsidering
its educational system, which is seen to be as too permissive. All countries try actively to
shape their children personalities by managing the value system in schools and these policies
may have an impact on how adults will be able to master and value freedom of choice.
On the other hand, public policies which focus on other institutional aspects such as marriage,
religion or political orientation may not be so powerful in delivering happiness as they may
have negative effects on freedom and control and, through this variable, reduce the positive
effect that these factors have on happiness.
Moreover, this phenomenon may grow as countries develop. If we consider that economic
development is generally associated with improvements in the educational systems,
democratic reforms, citizens’ participation in public life and a reduction of the role of family
and religion, we should expect citizens in rich nations to have a stronger degree of control
over choice and a better appreciation of freedom of choice. This brings us back to one of the
first observations we made in this paper about the relation between the significance of the
variable freedom&control in explaining life satisfaction and GDP per capita.
In Figure 5.4 we plot these two variables against each other for the sample of countries we
used in this study. On the y-axis (the left hand side) we have the coefficient of the variable
freedom&control extracted from the multivariate equations which we presented in tables 5.1
and A2. On the x-axis (bottom of the chart) we have average GDP per capita at Purchasing
Power parity for each country observed.144 Therefore, what we observe in the figure is how
well freedom&control explains life satisfaction as GDP per capita increases.
We can see some clear patterns in the figure. The first is that the relation between the
explanatory power of freedom&control and GDP per capita is positive. In richer countries the
variable freedom&control predicts life satisfaction better than in poorer countries. This is also
what we observed in table A2. For a one step change in the freedom&control variable, life
satisfaction changes by in between 40% and 50% of a step for rich countries and in between
20% and 30% of a step for poor countries.
The second pattern is that the richest nations of Europe and North-America form a block on
their own around high levels of GDP per capita and not so high levels of the explanatory
power of freedom&control. This suggests that the relation between the two variables is not
entirely linear. As GDP per capita reaches high levels the explanatory power of
freedom&control increases but at a lower pace (decreasing marginal returns). This could be
interpreted as richer countries having reached a sort of maturity or equilibrium where it is
difficult to increase freedom further without compromising on happiness.
On the other hand of the spectrum we have countries such as Pakistan, Egypt and Turkey
with relatively low levels of GDP per capita and a very low impact of freedom&control over life
satisfaction. These may be seen as countries in an early stage where increasing freedom
would not necessarily lead to more life satisfaction.
In between the two extremes we find the emerging economies of various parts of the world
which seem to show a positive and linear relation between the two variables. The richer a
country becomes, the more powerful is freedom&control in explaining life satisfaction. For
these countries the relation seems linear. Improvements in freedom&control go hand in hand
with improvements in GDP per capita. In summary, freedom&control is an always powerful
predictor of life satisfaction worldwide but the explanatory power varies according to
countries’ level of development.
PAGE 89 OF 105
FIGURE 5.4. THE EXPLANATORY POWER OF FREEDOM&CONTROL BY GDP PER
CAPITA
.8
newzeal
greece
.6
bosnia uruguay
can iceland
spain
germ
usa
kyrg australiauk
slovenia
indon
b_free_contr
croatia swe fin austria

est pol
mex czech
.4
france
southafr prico
bulg den
japan
slovakia
chile nor
china hung swi
iran latvia port
rom italy
el salv macedcol belgium
argen malta
bangl alb
zimb jordan brazil

india ukr alg lithuan
rus
belar
niguganda
georgia
azerb morocperu neth
dom
mold
.2
phil ven
vietnam
pak
egypt
turkey
0
0 10 20 30
gdp_cap
Perhaps the main lesson that we can draw from this paper is that it is not sufficient to
increase freedom to improve life satisfaction. It is also necessary for a country to equip its
citizens to make full use of such freedoms by devising policies that help individuals to
increase their degree of control over the outcome of their own life. When or where the role of
internal control is weak traditional institutions such as marriage and religion can effectively
replace or complement the role of control in delivering happiness. As countries develop
stronger alternative institutions such as education and work and equip citizens with stronger
degrees of control, the role of more traditional institutions such as family and religion is
progressively replaced in the public discourse.
5.7 References
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Unemployment in Eastern Europe”. Warwick Economic Research Papers (499).
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Diener, E., M. Diener, and C. Diener. 1995. “Factors Predicting the Subjective Wellbeing of
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Journal of Clinical Psychology 24 (1), 25-41.
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Diener, E., E. M. Suh, R. E. Lucas, and H. L. Smith. 1999. “Subjective Wellbeing: Three
Decades of Progress”. Psychological Bulletin 125 (2), 276-303.
DiTella, R., R. J. MacCulloch, and A. J. Oswald. 2001. “Preferences Over Inflation and Un-
employment: Evidence from Surveys on Happiness”. American Economic Review 91 (1), 335-
341.
Easterlin, R. A. 1974. “Does Economic Growth Improve the Human Lot?” In Nations and
Households in Economic Growth: Essays in Honour of Moses Abramovitz, ed. P. A. David
and M. W. Reder. New York: Academic Press.
Easterlin, R. A. 1995. “Will Raising the Incomes of All Increase the Happiness of All?” Journal
of Economic Behavior and Organisations 27, 35-47.
Easterlin, R. A. 2001. “Income and Happiness: Towards a United Theory”. The Economic
Journal 111 (473), 465-484.
Fordyce, M. A. 1988. “A Review of Research on Happiness Measures: A Sixty Second Index

of Happiness and Mental Health”. Social Indicators Research 20, 355-381.
Helliwell, J. F. 2003. “How’s Life? Combining Individual and National Variables to Explain
Subjective Wellbeing”. Economic Modelling 20, 331.360.
Inglehart, R. F. 1990. “Culture Shift In Advanced Industrial Society”. Princeton University

Press.
Iyengar, S. and M. Lepper. 2000. “When Choice Is Demotivating: Can One Desire Too Much
of a Good Thing?” Journal of Personality and Social Psychology 79 (6).
Lepper, H. S. 1998. “Use of Other-reports to Validate Subjective Wellbeing Measures”. Social

Indicators Research 44 (3), 367-379.
Mangahas, M. 1995. “Self-rated Poverty in the Philippines, 1981-1992”. International Journal

of Public Opinion Research 7, 40-55.
Ravallion, M. and Lokshin, M. 2001. “Identifying Welfare Effects from Subjective Questions”.
Economica 68, 335-357
Rotter, J. B. 1966. “Generalised Expectancies of Internal Versus External Control of

Reinforcements”. Psychological Monographs 80 (609).
Rotter, J. B. 1990. “Internal Versus External Locus of Control of Reinforcement: A Case

History of a Variable”. American Psychologist 45, 489-493.
Sandvik, E., E. Diener, and L. Seidlitz. 1993. “Subjective Wellbeing: The Convergence and
Stability of Self-report and Non Self-report Measures”. Journal of Personality 61 (3), 317-342.
Saris, W. E., A. C. Scherpenzeel, R. Veenhoven, and B. Bunting. 1996. A Comparative Study

of Satisfaction with Life in Europe. Eotvos University Press.
Sen, A. K. 1987. Commodities and Capabilities. Oxford University Press.
Simon, H. A. 1955. “A Behavioral Model of Rational Choice”. Quarterly Journal of Economics

69, 99-118.
PAGE 91 OF 105
Veenhoven, R. 1993. Happiness in Nations: Subjective Appreciation of Life in 56 Nations,
1946-1992. Rotterdam Erasmus University Press.
Veenhoven, R. 1996. “Developments in Satisfaction Research. Social Indicators Research

(37), 1-46.
Veenhoven, R. 2000. “Freedom and Happiness: A Comparative Study in 46 Nations in the

Early 1990s”. In Culture and Subjective Wellbeing, ed. E. Diener and E. Suh: 257-288. MIT
Press.
Wilson, W. 1967. “Correlates of Avowed Happiness”. Psychological Bulletin 67, 294-306.
Verme, Paolo. 2007. “Happiness and Freedom in a World of Heterogeneous Values”, paper
presented at the International Conference on Happiness and Public Policies, July 18-19,
2007, Bangkok, Thailand and at the International Conference on Policies for Happiness, June
14-17, 2007, Siena, Italy.
Wilson, W. 1967. “Correlates of Avowed Happiness”. Psychological Bulletin 67, 294-306.
Winkelmann, L. and R. Winkelmann. 1998. “Why Are the Unemployed So Unhappy?

Evidence from Panel Data”. Economica 65 (257), 1-15.
132
Veenhoven, Ruut. 2007 World Database of Happiness, Correlational Findings:
http://worlddatabaseofhappiness.eur.nl
133
Wilson, 1967; Veenhoven, 1996; Diener et Al., 1997; Clark and Oswald, 1994;
Blanchflower and Oswald, 1997; Winkelmann and Winkelmann, 1998.
134
Blanchflower and Oswald, 2000; Di Tella, MacCulloch and Oswald, 2001; Inglehart, 1990;
Diener et Al., 1995.
135
Easterlin, 1974, 1995, 2001; Diener et Al., 1999; Veenhoven, 1993; Mangahas, 1995;
Ravallion and Lokshin 2000; Clark and Oswald 1994.
136
Values surveys 1981-2004, integrated questionnaire version 20060423. Data can be freely
downloaded from: http://www.jdsurvey.net. We are grateful to the Values Study Group and
World Values Survey Association for creating and making accessible the EUROPEAN AND
WORLD VALUES SURVEYS FOUR-WAVE INTEGRATED DATA FILE, 1981-2004,
(v.20060423, 2006). Aggregate File Producers: Análisis Sociológicos Económicos y Políticos
(ASEP) and JD Systems (JDS), Madrid, Spain/Tilburg University, Tilburg, The Netherlands.
Data Files Suppliers: Análisis Sociológicos Económicos y Políticos (ASEP) and JD Systems
(JDS), Madrid, Spain/Tillburg University, Tillburg, The Netherlands/ Zentralarchiv fur
Empirische Sozialforschung (ZA), Cologne, Germany). Aggregate File Distributors: Análisis
Sociológicos Económicos y Políticos (ASEP) and JD Systems (JDS), Madrid, Spain/Tillburg
University, Tilburg, The Netherlands /Zentralarchiv fur Empirische Sozialforschung (ZA)
Cologne, Germany.
137
Lepper, 1998; Sandvik, Diener and Seidlitz, 1993; Fordyce, 1988; Inglehart, 1990; Saris
and Scherpenzel, 1996.
PAGE 92 OF 105
138
Veenhoven, 2000.
139
Income is measured as self-positioning in a ten-step income scale where the income
brackets have been measured in local currency in each country. This is not self-perceived
income but the positioning of individuals into income brackets. In some sense, this is a more
accurate indicator than self-reported income which is known to be underreported in household
surveys worldwide. That is because people are not asked to tell how much they earn but
simply to say to which income brackets they belong to. We call this variable ‘income rank’
because it measures rank rather than actual income. No measure of monetary income was
present in the database.
140
GDP per capita is extracted from the World Bank World Development Indicators database.
This measure is estimated in USD equivalent at Purchasing Power Parity.
141
http://www.heritage.org/Index/
142
Alesina et Al., 2004.
143
Helliwell, 2003.
144
This is the average for all years observed in each country given that for each country we
may have in between one and four years.
PAGE 93 OF 105
Table A1 - Life Satisfaction Equation - Pooled World Sample (*)
Coef. Std. Err. z

Freedom and Control freedom and control 0.362 0.010 37.6
income rank 0.164 0.021 7.8
Individual Economic
income rank squared -0.008 0.002 -4.8
Status
unemployed -0.431 0.026 -16.9
Female 0.052 0.011 4.9
Age -0.054 0.003 -20.3
Individual
age squared 0.001 0.000 17.4
Characteristics
Edutert 0.105 0.022 4.8
Married 0.292 0.018 16.4
tax cheat -0.033 0.004 -9.4
Individual Social
trust in people 0.127 0.021 6.2
Attitudes
trust in institutions 0.212 0.021 10.2
family importance 0.351 0.040 8.8
work importance 0.142 0.022 6.4
Individual Values
religion importance 0.302 0.023 13.3
politics importance -0.047 0.016 -3.0
gdp (000) 0.064 0.006 10.2
Country Economic gdp squared (000) -0.001 0.000 -3.7

Status employment rate 0.016 0.006 2.9
employment rate squared 0.000 0.000 -3.7
(*) Ordered logit estimations with robust standard errors, regional cluster and year fixed
effects.
PAGE 94 OF 105
Table A2 - Life Satisfaction Equations - Selected Countries (*)
Change
South- Signif. sign if
USA Canada Germany Spain Africa Mexico Russia China India Nigeria (#) signif.?
freedom and control 0.496 0.548 0.506 0.517 0.385 0.405 0.260 0.341 0.267 0.242 10 no
(26.76)** (27.96)** (21.11)** (29.99)** (9.26)** (5.92)** (19.14)** (10.34)** (6.57)** (13.00)**
income rank -0.039 0.017 0.055 0.186 0.44 0.112 0.062 0.169 -0.029 -0.053 2 no
-0.81 -0.31 -1.15 (3.64)** (10.59)** -1.23 -0.84 -1.71 -0.21 -0.57
income rank squared 0.01 0.001 -0.002 -0.01 -0.026 -0.006 0.003 -0.001 0.016 0.02 4 yes
(2.76)** -0.16 -0.44 (2.13)* (6.85)** -0.86 -0.55 -0.09 -1.14 (2.38)*
unemployed -0.268 -0.559 -1.432 -0.586 -0.539 0.09 -0.37 0.286 -0.165 0.019 6 no
(2.08)* (3.63)** (12.69)** (7.27)** (6.72)** -0.38 (3.51)** -1.33 -1.42 -0.2
female 0.002 0.045 0.129 -0.036 0.064 0.167 -0.019 0.188 0.055 0.168 4 no
-0.03 -1.84 (2.41)* -0.94 -1.14 (2.12)* -0.21 (2.24)* -1.31 (2.72)**
age -0.026 -0.042 -0.049 -0.06 -0.062 -0.062 -0.064 -0.06 -0.005 -0.065 9 no
(2.46)* (4.28)** (6.15)** (5.55)** (6.86)** (2.82)** (3.91)** (3.82)** -0.38 (6.43)**
age squared 0.000 0.001 0.000 0.001 0.001 0.001 0.001 0.001 0.00 0.001 9 no
(3.07)** (5.58)** (5.92)** (5.05)** (6.30)** (2.82)** (3.41)** (4.05)** -0.25 (6.37)**
edutert 0.002 -0.121 0.252 0.253 -0.14 -0.068 0.335 -0.001 0.127 0.253 6 yes
-0.02 (2.29)* (2.59)** (2.71)** (2.81)** -1.23 (4.48)** -0.02 -1.88 (5.04)**
married 0.589 0.691 0.506 0.554 0.302 0.35 0.29 0.509 0.118 0.217 9 no
(5.15)** (11.61)** (9.61)** (7.54)** (5.43)** (6.18)** (4.02)** (4.76)** -1.76 (3.19)**
PAGE 95 OF 105
tax cheat -0.058 -0.013 -0.02 -0.029 -0.022 -0.049 -0.001 -0.094 -0.029 0.014 5 no
(5.16)** -0.88 (2.11)* (2.83)** -1.42 (4.04)** -0.06 (3.63)** -1.15 -0.58
trust in people 0.156 0.054 0.427 0.082 0.193 -0.091 0.22 0.23 0.079 -0.041 4 no
-1.78 -0.56 (10.30)** -1.02 (3.00)** -1.13 (3.43)** (2.99)** -0.65 -0.91
trust in institutions 0.182 0.31 0.416 0.078 0.096 -0.018 0.418 0.337 0.127 0.241 7 no
(2.20)* (2.47)* (4.82)** (1.98)* -1.16 -0.43 (6.21)** (4.02)** -1.17 (6.04)**
family importance 0.371 0.58 0.195 0.32 0.315 0.367 0.178 0.274 -0.18 0.215 3 no
-1.42 (2.97)** -1.18 -0.96 -1.25 (3.38)** (2.18)* -1.24 -0.6 -0.43
work importance -0.222 -0.074 0.268 0.251 -0.017 0.3 0.069 0.265 -0.076 0.08 4 yes
(2.57)* -0.58 (3.22)** (2.77)** -0.17 (2.66)** -1.21 -1.76 -0.51 -0.58
religion importance 0.267 0.165 0.165 0.151 0.288 0.064 0.135 -0.119 0.343 0.668 8 no
(3.76)** (3.39)** (2.89)** (3.05)** (5.96)** -0.8 (2.29)* -1.36 (3.06)** (4.08)**
politics importance 0.091 -0.059 0.037 -0.087 -0.1 -0.11 -0.038 0.173 0.03 0.044 2 yes
-1.66 -1.15 -0.74 -1.74 (2.20)* -1.42 -0.63 (2.47)* -0.33 -0.95
Observations 4071 3104 6016 5521 6848 4344 4980 2755 5053 4321
Pseudo R-squared 0.08 0.09 0.1 0.08 0.09 0.07 0.05 0.07 0.06 0.04
gdp/capita PPP (000, aver.) 27.532 23.777 22.611 16.984 9.719 8.086 7.506 2.825 2.045 0.868
Source: Verme(2007). (*) Ordered logit estimations with regional clusters and year fixed effects. z statistics in parentheses. * significant at 5%; ** significant at
1%.
PAGE 96 OF 105
Table A3: Freedom&control Equation -- Pooled World Sample (*)
Coef. Std. Err. z

Life satisfaction life satisfaction 0.376465 0.010364 36.33
income rank -0.03145 0.013952 -2.25
Individual Economic
income rank squared 0.004364 0.00126 3.46
Status
unemployed 0.033873 0.022875 1.48
Female -0.13844 0.012308 -11.25
Age 0.006239 0.002638 2.36
Individual
age squared -0.0001 2.56E-05 -4.04
Characteristics
Edutert 0.148985 0.01917 7.77
Married -0.17031 0.016979 -10.03
tax cheat -0.00469 0.003346 -1.4
Individual Social
trust in people 0.002933 0.014799 0.2
Attitudes
trust in institutions 0.031143 0.016372 1.9
family importance 0.038149 0.034864 1.09
work importance 0.147145 0.024255 6.07
Individual Values
religion importance 0.062641 0.019531 3.21
politics importance 0.089226 0.014837 6.01
gdp (000) 0.017674 0.007116 2.48
Country Economic gdp squared (000) -0.0005 0.000224 -2.25

Status employment rate -0.00625 0.00376 -1.66
employment rate squared 0.000064 3.39E-05 1.89
(*) Ordered logit estimations with robust standard errors, regional cluster and year fixed
effects.
PAGE 97 OF 105
Table A4: Happiness, freedom&control and institutions
Life satisfaction Freedom&control

family important in life 0.358 0.029
(9.86)** -0.87
work important in life 0.044 0.134
(2.14)* (5.85)**
religion important in life 0.19 -0.071
(14.34)** (3.66)**
politics important in life -0.039 0.089
(3.23)** (6.32)**
most people can be trusted 0.16 0.046
(10.94)** (3.75)**
trust in institutions 0.233 0.054
(10.14)** (2.85)**
Married 0.325 -0.142
(22.50)** (9.86)**
Unemployed -0.395 -0.001
(13.93)** -0.03
income rank 0.175 0.013
(9.73)** -1.19
income rank squared -0.008 0.001
(5.02)** -1.27
Female 0.104 -0.146
(9.31)** (13.49)**
Age -0.054 0.006
(24.68)** -1.89
age squared 0.001 0
(23.98)** (2.86)**
tertiary education 0.065 0.104
(3.67)** (5.61)**
Life satisfaction 0.341
(17.56)**
Freedom&control 0.315
(14.23)**
year and country dummies (omitted)
Observations 181105 181105
PAGE 98 OF 105
6. Appendix: Gallup World Poll Technical Information
Question Wording
Category Question Text

Health Are you satisfied or dissatisfied with your personal health?
If you were in trouble, do you have relatives or friends you can count
Family Life on to help you whenever you need them, or not?
Approximately, how many hours of your time yesterday was free time,
Time for Leisure where you could do what you wanted to do?
In the city or area where you live, are you satisfied or dissatisfied with
Environment the quality of air?
Have you done any of the following in the past month? How about
Community Life Donated money to a charity?
Have you done any of the following in the past month? How about
Community Life Volunteered your time to an organisation?
Equality of Opportunity Can people in this country get ahead by working hard, or not?
In (country), are you satisfied or dissatisfied with Efforts to preserve
Environment the environment?
In (country), are you satisfied or dissatisfied with Your freedom to
Freedom of Choice choose what you do with your life?
Survey Details
Data Collection
Date
(month Number of Mode of Margin of
Country completed) Interviews Sample Interviewing Error a
Nationally Landline
Australia April-07 1205 Representative Telephone 3.2
Nationally Face-to-face
Algeria February-07 1070 Representative 4.5
Argentina August-07 1000 Representative 3.3
Nationally Landline
Austria April-06 1004 Representative Telephone 3.7
Representative with
Bangladesh April-07 1200 oversample 3.3
Belarus July-07 1114 Nationally Face-to-face 3.0
PAGE 99 OF 105
Representative
Nationally Landline
Belgium May-07 1022 Representative Telephone 3.7
Belize October-07 502 Representative 4.5
Bolivia July-07 1000 Representative 3.7
Representative, some
Botswana May-06 1000 areas excluded 3.4
Brazil August-07 1038 Representative 3.4
Bulgaria January-07 1003 Representative 3.3
Representative with
Cambodia August-07 1000 oversample 3.6
Cameroon June-07 1000 Representative 3.4
Nationally
Representative with Landline
Canada September-07 1010 oversample Telephone 4.0
Central African Representative, some
Republic November-07 1000 areas excluded 3.4
Chile August-07 1023 Representative 4.0
Representative with
China October-07 4238 oversample 2.1
Colombia July-07 1000 Representative 3.5
Costa Rica September-07 1002 Representative 3.2
Croatia January-07 1000 Representative 3.4
Czech Republic June-07 1072 Representative 3.1
Nationally Landline
Denmark May-07 1009 Representative Telephone 3.5
Dominican Nationally Face-to-face
Republic September-07 1000 Representative 4.1
Ecuador July-07 1061 Representative 3.1
Egypt July-07 1024 Representative 3.1
El Salvador September-07 1001 Representative 3.1
PAGE 100 OF 105

Estonia August-07 1001 Representative 3.1
Landline and
Nationally Cellular
Finland April-06 1010 Representative Telephone 3.6
Nationally
France December-06 1220 oversample Telephone 3.4
Nationally
Germany January-07 1221 oversample Telephone 3.1
Ghana February-07 1000 Representative 5.4
Nationally Landline
Greece May-07 1000 Representative Telephone 3.1
Guatemala September-07 1000 Representative 3.1
Honduras September-07 1000 Representative 3.1
Nationally Landline
Hong Kong December-06 800 Representative Telephone 3.7
Hungary May-07 1010 Representative 3.5
Representative with
India May-07 3186 oversample 3.1
Indonesia April-07 1000 Representative 3.2
Representative with
Iran July-07 1004 oversample 3.3
Nationally Landline
Ireland May-06 1000 Representative Telephone 4.1
Israel August-07 1001 Representative 3.3
Nationally Landline
Italy May-07 1008 Representative Telephone 3.4
Jamaica November-06 543 Representative 4.5
Nationally Landline
Japan August-07 1150 Representative Telephone 3.0
Jordan October-07 1016 Representative 3.1
Kazakhstan December-07 1000 Representative 3.7
Kenya June-07 1000 areas excluded 4.6
PAGE 101 OF 105

Nationally Landline
Korea, South May-07 1000 Representative Telephone 3.8
Representative of the
Kuwait August-06 1000 Arab population 3.7
Latvia July-07 1017 Representative 3.1
Lebanon October-06 1000 Representative 3.2
Macedonia January-07 1042 Representative 3.6
Representative with
Malaysia June-07 1233 oversample 3.0
Mali June-06 1000 areas excluded 3.3
Mexico July-07 999 Representative 3.8
Moldova June-07 1000 areas excluded 3.2
Representative with
Mongolia September-07 1000 oversample 3.5
Morocco December-07 1042 Representative 3.1
Mozambique July-07 1000 Representative 3.4
Namibia September-07 1000 Representative 3.5
Representative, with
Nepal July-07 1000 oversample 3.7
Nationally Landline
Netherlands May-07 1000 Representative Telephone 3.6
Nationally Landline
New Zealand February-07 750 Representative Telephone 3.7
Nicaragua September-07 1000 Representative 3.1
Nigeria May-07 1000 Representative 3.4
Nationally Landline
Norway May-06 1001 Representative Telephone 3.8
Representative with
oversample, some
Pakistan March-07 1502 areas excluded 3.1
PAGE 102 OF 105

Panama September-07 1000 Representative 3.1
Paraguay July-07 1000 Representative 3.3
Peru July-07 1000 Representative 3.7
Representative with
Philippines August-07 1000 oversample 3.6
Poland May-07 1000 Representative 3.4
Portugal September-06 1007 Representative 3.9
Romania May-07 1000 Representative 3.6
Representative with
Russia May-07 2949 oversample 2.3
Representative of
Saudi National
Saudi Arabia July-07 1006 population 3.1
Senegal February-07 1000 Representative 3.1
Singapore May-07 1000 Representative 3.6
Slovakia April-06 1018 Representative 3.4
Slovenia April-06 1009 Representative 3.7
South Africa September-07 1000 Representative 3.9
Nationally Landline
Spain April-07 1004 Representative Telephone 3.3
Representative with
oversample, some
Sri Lanka May-07 1000 areas excluded 3.7
Sudan January-08 1000 areas excluded 3.3
Nationally Landline
Sweden July-05 1000 Representative Telephone 3.2
Nationally Landline
Switzerland May-06 1000 Representative Telephone 3.5
Taiwan November-06 1002 Representative 3.6
Tanzania June-07 1000 Nationally Face-to-face 4.9
PAGE 103 OF 105

Representative
Representative with
Thailand August-07 1006 oversample 3.6
Trinidad and Nationally Face-to-face
Tobago November-06 508 Representative 4.9
Tunisia March-07 912 Representative 3.5
Turkey May-07 1001 Representative 3.5
Ukraine July-07 1066 Representative 4.0
United Arab Representative of the
Emirates August-06 1013 Arab population 3.2
Nationally
Representative, with Landline
United Kingdom January-07 1204 oversample Telephone 3.3
Nationally Panel
United States August-07 1225 Representative 4.1
Uruguay July-07 1004 Representative 3.2
Uzbekistan June-06 1000 Representative 3.3
Venezuela December-06 1000 Representative 3.4
Vietnam July-07 1018 Representative 3.5
Yemen January-07 1000 Representative 3.6
Zambia July-07 1000 Representative 4.9
Zimbabwe July-07 1000 Representative 4.2
a. Margin of error is calculated around a proportion at the 95% confidence level. The
maximum margin of error was calculated assuming a reported percentage of 50% and takes
into account the design effect. Margin of error calculation: √(0.25/N)*1.96*√(DE)
PAGE 104 OF 105

7. Acknowledgements
The Legatum Institute wishes to thank the following individuals who assisted in the production
of the 2008 Prosperity Index.
Janika Albers
Jo Alexander
Rhiannon Alexander
Giles Alston
Nicole Anwer
Oliver Balch
Cris Ballinas
Hamish Banks
Zsofia Barta
Samuel Bazzi
Ame Berges
Alexander Bristow
James Drinkwater
Maurice Fakoury
Jean Geran
Lucy Greig
Glenn Goldsmith
Anthony Harris
Luke Haywood
Mo Henderson
Gergely Hudecz
Erik Jackson
Nick Jones
Oswaldo Molina
Sarah Naimark
Chris Noon
Dan Severson
Ryan Streeter
Colin Webb
Toni Weis
Laurence Williams
Sam Wilkin
PAGE 105 OF 105

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PROSPERITY INDEX

The 2008 Legatum Prosperity Index Report

LEGATUM LIMITED TELEPHONE +971 4 317 5800

William C. Inboden Alan McCormick

Dr. Daniel Drezner

Finally, the Legatum Institute recognises Oxford Analytica (www.oxan.com), an independent

Senator Robert F. Kennedy1

Background: The Prosperity Index in Context

Economic Competitiveness Subindex

Comparative Liveability Subindex

1.1 The Insufficiency of GDP as an Indicator of National Prosperity

IS GDP TOO NARROW?

ATTEMPTS TO CREATE ALTERNATIVE INDICATORS

THE SCIENCE OF SUBJECTIVE WELLBEING

WELLBEING INDICATORS IN PRACTICE

1.3 The Case for the Legatum Prosperity Index

GROWING INTEREST IN WELLBEING

THE LEGATUM PROSPERITY INDEX

COMPARING PROSPERITY INDEX SCORES AND PROSPERITY PERFORMANCE

FIGURE 1.1 SCATTERPLOT OF COUNTRY SCORES ON THE LEGATUM INDEX OF

VEN FRA GBR

GTM JOR CHLTTO SVN

THE PROSPERITY INDEX REPORT

2.1 How We Built the Index

COMBINING COMPETITIVENESS AND LIVEABILITY

CONSIDERING DIFFERENT LEVELS OF DEVELOPMENT

FIGURE 2.1 ILLUSTRATION OF THE RELATIONSHIP BETWEEN GOVERNMENT

Predicted per capita GDP growth as a function of (normalised) government effectiveness

FIGURE 2.4 THE RELATIONSHIP BETWEEN GOVERNMENT EFFECTIVENESS AND

MAKING THE BIGGEST DIFFERENCE

WHY USE A DYNAMIC WEIGHTING SCHEME?

AN APPROACH BASED ON GROWTH MODELS

Widths of bands represent percentage weights as components of a total Economic

Over the period,

COMMERCIALISING NEW IDEAS (OR INNOVATION AS PER FIGURE)

Entrepreneurship (as business ownership49) is widespread in poor countries. However, as this

2.3 Building the Comparative Liveability Index

AN APPROACH BASED ON CROSS-NATIONAL ANALYSIS

80% Family Life

Income (In'tl USD)

Widths of bands represent percentage weights as components of a total Comparative

FOSTERS FREEDOM AND OPPORTUNITY

CREATES AN ENVIRONMENT FOR WELLBEING

Recent research identifies a positive correlation between democracy and subjective

Country's Average Subjective Wellbeing

0 10000 20000 30000 40000

Numerous studies have confirmed severe negative effects of personal unemployment on

The family is an important determinant of subjective wellbeing, as well as an essential domain

3.2 Economic Growth: The Traditional View

FIGURE 3.1: RATE OF ENTREPRENEURSHIP IN SELECTED COUNTRIES, 1972 TO 2004

3.3 Globalisation and the Role of Knowledge

FIGURE 3.2: COUNTRIES INNOVATIVE PROPENSITY, 1883 TO 2006

Countries Innovative Propensity, 1883 to 2006

Source: World Intellectual Property Organisation

3.4 The Knowledge Filter and Entrepreneurship

Knowledge Filter barriers created by law, information

An example for Figure 3.3, is an employee from an established large corporation, or

3.5 Entrepreneurship Policy

Audretsch, D. 2007. “Entrepreneurship Capital and Economic Growth”, Oxford Review of