What Does A Country Need To Be Happy?
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Publicado: 16 de diciembre de 2012
What does a country need to be happy?
By Lorena Vidal Muñoz Student ID: 2110446 Economics Perspectives Semester one 2011/2012
In recent years, interest in knowing the happiness of people from the point of view of subjective well-being has grown. That is the analysis of the factors that influence an individual to define himself as happy or satisfied. As a starting point of the analysis isnecessary to perform some conceptual specifications to avoid confusion that may result from full equality of concepts between which there is an obvious link, but are not synonymous: quality of life, welfare and happiness. Quality of life refers to an individual's perception of their place in existence, in the context of culture and value system in which the individual lives and in relation to theirobjectives and expectations, standards and concerns. By contrast welfare is the awareness that each individual has been covered his private needs. Finally, the concept of happiness is linked to the previous two, and it definition is a state of mind which is a satisfaction. Happiness is inward, not outward, therefore. Depends not on what we have, but what we are. Happiness of a country may also bemeasured as an individual; therefore the aim of this paper is to evaluate the different determinants of this. Firstly, it is important to start analysing the income growth. People are used to imagine that the happiness of a person is directly proportional to their income level, in the same way for a country, but it is important to ascertain if this is really true. The true is that a country withhigher income that other one can own more properties, technology, goods in general, that report a higher level of utility. But the reality is that this utility only grows for a certain period of time, because at the end a country as a person gets used to a determined purchasing power. In spite of this, have higher incomes mean, come what may, be able to buy more of anything, but not only goods,but also have a better health system, stronger buildings, the possibility of a better exploitation of natural resources for the welfare of a country ... There is a wellknown phrase that says "money does not bring the happiness" but is seen and proven that it helps greatly to get it. Accurately, Regards Économiques Magazine of the University of Louvain (Belgium), published a report declaring that ahigh level of Gross Domestic Product per capita is not directly proportional to greater personal satisfaction on the grounds that there are other factors besides the purely economic factors that influence this happiness. In fact, a high GDP with large-scale distribution of the wealth will do that the well-being is more extended in the society, whereas with big concentrations of wealth in a few¹This study has been heavily criticized by several sociologists for the ideology of this foundation: to preserve natural resources intact. ² Nevertheless, diverse studies demonstrate that in spite of better income and major quality of life the sensation of well-being has not improved. Norway, Switzerland, Sweden and Netherlands appear in the surveys as the happiest countries of the planet. In spite ofit they have the highest rates of suicide of the world. 1 ³ According to the definition of Social Welfare of the site: tengodeudas.com
people the GDP per capita is not a good indicator of the level of economic well-being of a country. In the context of the income growth, it is important to explain the "Dutch disease". This name is given to the harmful consequences that resulted from theextraordinary increase in the income of a country due to its high dependence on a sudden discovery of oil in the North Sea. This shows that and increased on a country’s income is not always a positive aspect. But this also shows that it is important to be able to manage this growth of the income. The right governance of a country is another key point for the attainment of happiness in a territory....
By Lorena Vidal Muñoz Student ID: 2110446 Economics Perspectives Semester one 2011/2012
In recent years, interest in knowing the happiness of people from the point of view of subjective well-being has grown. That is the analysis of the factors that influence an individual to define himself as happy or satisfied. As a starting point of the analysis isnecessary to perform some conceptual specifications to avoid confusion that may result from full equality of concepts between which there is an obvious link, but are not synonymous: quality of life, welfare and happiness. Quality of life refers to an individual's perception of their place in existence, in the context of culture and value system in which the individual lives and in relation to theirobjectives and expectations, standards and concerns. By contrast welfare is the awareness that each individual has been covered his private needs. Finally, the concept of happiness is linked to the previous two, and it definition is a state of mind which is a satisfaction. Happiness is inward, not outward, therefore. Depends not on what we have, but what we are. Happiness of a country may also bemeasured as an individual; therefore the aim of this paper is to evaluate the different determinants of this. Firstly, it is important to start analysing the income growth. People are used to imagine that the happiness of a person is directly proportional to their income level, in the same way for a country, but it is important to ascertain if this is really true. The true is that a country withhigher income that other one can own more properties, technology, goods in general, that report a higher level of utility. But the reality is that this utility only grows for a certain period of time, because at the end a country as a person gets used to a determined purchasing power. In spite of this, have higher incomes mean, come what may, be able to buy more of anything, but not only goods,but also have a better health system, stronger buildings, the possibility of a better exploitation of natural resources for the welfare of a country ... There is a wellknown phrase that says "money does not bring the happiness" but is seen and proven that it helps greatly to get it. Accurately, Regards Économiques Magazine of the University of Louvain (Belgium), published a report declaring that ahigh level of Gross Domestic Product per capita is not directly proportional to greater personal satisfaction on the grounds that there are other factors besides the purely economic factors that influence this happiness. In fact, a high GDP with large-scale distribution of the wealth will do that the well-being is more extended in the society, whereas with big concentrations of wealth in a few¹This study has been heavily criticized by several sociologists for the ideology of this foundation: to preserve natural resources intact. ² Nevertheless, diverse studies demonstrate that in spite of better income and major quality of life the sensation of well-being has not improved. Norway, Switzerland, Sweden and Netherlands appear in the surveys as the happiest countries of the planet. In spite ofit they have the highest rates of suicide of the world. 1 ³ According to the definition of Social Welfare of the site: tengodeudas.com
people the GDP per capita is not a good indicator of the level of economic well-being of a country. In the context of the income growth, it is important to explain the "Dutch disease". This name is given to the harmful consequences that resulted from theextraordinary increase in the income of a country due to its high dependence on a sudden discovery of oil in the North Sea. This shows that and increased on a country’s income is not always a positive aspect. But this also shows that it is important to be able to manage this growth of the income. The right governance of a country is another key point for the attainment of happiness in a territory....
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