More than 1,000 statisticians and economists yesterday wound up four days of talks in Istanbul devoted to two of mankind's most intractable questions: what is happiness and how do you measure it?
Experts attending a forum of the Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development (OECD) acknowledged that the indexes used in the past, which depended basically on economic data such as national wealth and GDP, were no longer valid.
"Because we measure GDP per capita, then we believe that we know if people are satisfied or not," OECD Secretary General Jose Angel Gurria told the forum on "Statistics, Knowledge and Policy."
"But how well informed are in fact the leaders about what people want, feel and believe? We must seek tools that can improve rational policy-making."
Professor Ruut Veenhoven of Erasmus University in Rotterdam said that in the future statistics must take into account how happy people are.
Those surveyed had to reply to a simple question: "To what extent are you at present happy with your life?" They had to give it a mark out of 10.
Veenhoven, who heads the World Database on Happiness, has compiled figures for 95 countries.
It turns out that the happiest folk on the face of the Earth are the citizens of Denmark who give themselves an average of 8.2 out of 10. The least happy people are Tanzanians who score 3.2 while the United States occupies 17th position and Russia 84th.
"The happy countries are rich, they have a competitive economy, they are democratic, they are well governed -- irrespective of the regime they have good bureaucrats, open, responsive and not corrupt -- there is gender equality and there is tolerance, and so people are free in these societies to seek that way of life that fits them best," Veenhoven said.
In terms of individuals, married people are in general more happy than singles but the index drops with the arrival of children, women's liberation has done more for men's happiness than for women's, and the higher the educational level the less likely the individual is to be happy.
Apart from their value of snapshots of society, data such as these could one day influence government decisions.
"You can ask people about happiness in various domains of their lives, then you can go to further subdomains to know what is the impact of government policies," said Richard Layard, a professor at the London School of Economics.
Calculating happiness is still at the experimental stage but, Layard thinks, could one day be a more useful policy tool than opinion polls.
"We are trying to find out what the government policies actually did to them, not how they judge the government policies," he said.
To many, Tatu City on the outskirts of Nairobi looks like a success. The first city entirely built by a private company to be operational in east Africa, with about 25,000 people living and working there, it accounts for about two-thirds of all foreign investment in Kenya. Its low-tax status has attracted more than 100 businesses including Heineken, coffee brand Dormans, and the biggest call-center and cold-chain transport firms in the region. However, to some local politicians, Tatu City has looked more like a target for extortion. A parade of governors have demanded land worth millions of dollars in exchange
An Indonesian animated movie is smashing regional box office records and could be set for wider success as it prepares to open beyond the Southeast Asian archipelago’s silver screens. Jumbo — a film based on the adventures of main character, Don, a large orphaned Indonesian boy facing bullying at school — last month became the highest-grossing Southeast Asian animated film, raking in more than US$8 million. Released at the end of March to coincide with the Eid holidays after the Islamic fasting month of Ramadan, the movie has hit 8 million ticket sales, the third-highest in Indonesian cinema history, Film
BIG BUCKS: Chairman Wei is expected to receive NT$34.12 million on a proposed NT$5 cash dividend plan, while the National Development Fund would get NT$8.27 billion Taiwan Semiconductor Manufacturing Co (TSMC, 台積電), the world’s largest contract chipmaker, yesterday announced that its board of directors approved US$15.25 billion in capital appropriations for long-term expansion to meet growing demand. The funds are to be used for installing advanced technology and packaging capacity, expanding mature and specialty technology, and constructing fabs with facility systems, TSMC said in a statement. The board also approved a proposal to distribute a NT$5 cash dividend per share, based on first-quarter earnings per share of NT$13.94, it said. That surpasses the NT$4.50 dividend for the fourth quarter of last year. TSMC has said that while it is eager
‘IMMENSE SWAY’: The top 50 companies, based on market cap, shape everything from technology to consumer trends, advisory firm Visual Capitalist said Taiwan Semiconductor Manufacturing Co (TSMC, 台積電) was ranked the 10th-most valuable company globally this year, market information advisory firm Visual Capitalist said. TSMC sat on a market cap of about US$915 billion as of Monday last week, making it the 10th-most valuable company in the world and No. 1 in Asia, the publisher said in its “50 Most Valuable Companies in the World” list. Visual Capitalist described TSMC as the world’s largest dedicated semiconductor foundry operator that rolls out chips for major tech names such as US consumer electronics brand Apple Inc, and artificial intelligence (AI) chip designers Nvidia Corp and Advanced
RSS