TY  - JOUR
AU  - Leigh,Andrew
AU  - Wolfers,Justin
TI  - Happiness and the Human Development Index: Australia is Not a Paradox
JF  - National Bureau of Economic Research Working Paper Series
VL  - No. 11925
PY  - 2006
Y2  - January 2006
UR  - http://www.nber.org/papers/w11925
L1  - http://www.nber.org/papers/w11925.pdf
N1  - Author contact info:
Andrew Leigh
Economics Division, RSSS
Australian National University
ACT 0200, Australia
Tel: 011 612 6125 1374
Fax: 011 612 6125 0182
E-Mail: andrew.leigh@anu.edu.au

Justin Wolfers
Business and Public Policy Department
Wharton School, University of Pennsylvania
3620 Locust Walk
Room 1456 Steinberg-Deitrich Hall
Philadelphia, PA 19104-6372
Tel: (215) 898-3013
Fax: (215) 898-7635
E-Mail: jwolfers@wharton.upenn.edu
AB  - In "Happiness and the Human Development Index: The Paradox of Australia," Blanchflower and Oswald (2005) observe an apparent puzzle: they claim that Australia ranks highly in the Human Development Index (HDI), but relatively poorly in happiness. However, when we compare their happiness data with the HDI, Australia appears happier, not sadder, than its HDI score would predict. This conclusion also holds when we turn to a larger cross-national dataset than the one used by Blanchflower and Oswald, when we analyse life satisfaction in place of happiness, and when we measure development using GDP per capita in place of the HDI. Indeed, in the World Values Survey, only one other country (Iceland) has a significantly higher level of both life satisfaction and happiness than Australia. Our findings accord with numerous cross-national surveys conducted since the 1940s, which have consistently found that Australians report high levels of wellbeing.
ER  -