Happy Danes – again

The annual World Values Survey by the United States National Science Foundation once again finds that Denmark is the world’s happiest nation. Puerto Rico and Colombia completed the top three while Zimbabwe was the least happy. The study was directed by Ronald Inglehart of the University of Michigan.

Meanwhile, Alan Wolfe has reviewed books on happiness economics (by Bruno Frey) and behavioural economics (by Dan Ariely) for the New Republic. Wolfe sees the new economics as a revival of utilitarianism. He also cites a paper by Norbert Schwart and Fritz Stark which he says leave the validity of subjective reports of happiness “in tatters” (in a book called Well-Being published by the Russell Sage Foundation in 1999).