Es2 Unit 2 Research Paper

ES2-U5 Jean-Claude Gawel Harsha Gubbi Hwa Joon Choi Tzu Min Lin Juanita Ojeda

Does wealth make people happier?

The relationship between GDP per capita and the Happy Planet Index (HPI)

We investigated the relationship between Gross Domestic Product (GDP) per capita and the Happy Planet Index (HPI), using data collected from the census and the results of the 2012 HPI by the New Economics Foundation (NEF) and the GDP per capita data published by the World Bank (http://data.worldbank.org/indicator/NY.GDP.PCAP.CD).
The 2012 HPI shows the extent to which 151 countries across the globe produce long, happy and sustainable lives for the people that live in them. The Index uses global data on three criteria: life expectancy (LE), experienced well being (EW) and Ecological Footprint (EF) to
We cannot observe a direct relation between GPD per capita and HPI in this group. Among this group, people in central and southern America (Mexico 52.9, Chile 53.9, Brazil 52.9, Argentina 54.1) have higher HPI. However, we have to refer to other data to verify that if people in central and southern America tend to be happier in nature. * GDP per Capita >$20,000:
The level of happiness of people in this cluster can vary from HPI 27.1 to HPI 55. The average HPI of this group is 41.9 but the range of HPI is 27.9. There are several countries with high GDP per Capita but low HPI indicating that higher GDP doesn’t necessarily bring higher happiness. For example, Luxembourg has the highest GPD 115,038 but the lowest HPI in this cluster.
Conclusions:
1. Wealthier People are not necessarily happier: we did not find a relationship between GPD per Capita and HPI, or an ideal level of income that generates the highest HPI. 2. Outliers: There are outliers that contradict the common conception that high income implies