Correlation or Causation? You Decide. . .

So, countries that have high taxes also have large numbers of sexual partners. Maybe I should continue to live in the US and buy a vacation house in Scandinavia?

Oddly, Adrian White, analytic social psychologist at the University of Leicester in England rated what he considered to be the happiest countries in the world. According to White’s data, the top 10 countries in the world with the highest SWL rankings are:

1. Denmark
2. Switzerland
3. Austria
4. Iceland
5. Bahamas
6. Finland
7. Sweden
8. Bhutan
9. Brunei Darussalam
10. Canada

From his site:

The map(goto the site to view)itself mirrors other projection of poverty and GDP. This data on SWB was compared with data on access to education (UNESCO, 2005), health (United Nations, 2005), and poverty (CIA, 2006). It was found that SWB correlated most strongly with health (.7) closely followed by wealth (.6) and access to basic education (.6). This adds to the evidence that from a global perspective the biggest causes of SWB are poverty and associated variables.

Marks, N., Abdallah, S., Simms, A, Thompson, S. (2006). The Happy Planet Index. London: New Economics Foundation.

Taxes? Pffft. . .we’re all getting laid!

(Thanks to reader AF for the links.)