The chief economic indicator of economic prosperity is GDP per Capita, or Gross National Domestic Product per Capita. This metric, according to Investopedia, is "the value of a nation's finished domestic goods and services during a specific time period." While many different factors go into calculating GDP per Capita, it is very strongly correlated with poverty levels and population resources. It comes as no surprise from The Anatomy of Happiness that GDP per capita is thus strongly correlated with happiness; however, we can't see the economic factors influencing happiness from GDP per Capita alone. So how do the factors affecting individual economies--essentially, their policies--correlate with economic prosperity?

From the accompanying graph, we can see that countries with more exports as a percent of GDP may be slightly happier. However, the level of overlap between most and least happiest may indicate that this is not a major correalting factor; the slight difference may only indicate a slight overall difference in economic robustness.

Controlling consumer inflation has long been a major interest of the government. While runaway inflation can cause consumers to be unable to purchase goods, data shows that relatively low inflation rates on consumer goods don't necessarily impact happiness in a major way.

The unemployment rate has often been a source of anxiety for many experts. While it's true that unemployment that is in the double-digits often indicates that other economic and health metrics are going haywire, data from the World Bank shows that unemployment rate--perhaps counterintuitively--doesn't have that much of an impact on happiness scores. How about that!

The economic growth rate is often a great area of concern for the government and financial analysts. While a contracting economy isn't great, growth isn't as essential to happiness as many make it out to be. The graph on the right side of the page shows that economic growth rates-- either positive or negative--don't correlate that much with happiness.

The chief indicator of a nation's health is thought to be longevity. Longevity is influenced by all kinds of factors, but is chiefly influenced by the disease burden and quality of healthcare available to the citizenry. As with GDP per capita, it comes as no surprise that health factors are also innnately connected with happiness; however, we can't see the health factors influencing happiness from a single longevity graph. below are more explorations of the healthcare outcomes in the least and most happiest countries.

Ever had to wait hours for the doctor to see you? While waiting is always annoying, the effectiveness of a doctor's visit is inherently limited by time. The ability of doctors to see everyone who needs to be seen is thus innately connected to--simply--how many doctors there are. From this graph, we can infer that fewer doctors to serve the population (coupled with a higher disease burden) causes worse healthcare outcomes. Without strong domestic medical schools, the populations in the least happiest countries are (unfortunately) very sparsely served, and many patients may not be ever be seen by specialists that can better address their specific problems.

DALYs, or disability-adjusted life-years, are a popular measure of disease burden upon a population. They are defined by the World Health Organization as "the sum of years of potential life lost due to premature mortality and the years of productive life lost due to disability." As we can see, DALYs are innately connected to health outcomes; countries with fewer physicians and a lesser ability to serve the population can therefore expect a higher disability burden. This disability burden in less happy countries is exacerbated by...

Basic hygiene is typically defined as having clean hand-washing water available, and sanitation for sewage. A lack of municipal infrastructure can mean that problems associated with a lack of controlled hygiene-- including waterborne diseases like cholera and parasitical outbreaks--manifest chronically and endemically within the population. Interestingly, by also observing the Explore Tab, we find that improving basic sanitation for citizenry is strongly and immediately correlated with boosting happiness.

Not having food was once the largest source of food-related problems on this planet. While overweight is now a more pressing issue, undernourishment and malnutrition still affects millions around the world. As with basic sanitation, improving food security for some sector of the population may have an immediate salving effect on happiness. Malsow's Hierarchy, once again, holds true.

Average household size is the average number of people living in a single household. Higher numbers indicate that families may live in multi-generational homes; while this isn't inherently a detractor to happiness, a large household size may negatively affect happiness when compounded with known sanitation issues. Data is spotty, but it suggests that household size may not be a huge factor--but other societal factors are.

Education expenditure generally improves the quality of education to a great extent: students can get more materials and opportunities, top-paying schools can attract more teaching talent, and a greater diversity of educational endeavors can be supported. Despite this, the overlap of higher-expenditure least-happy countries with lower-expenditure most-happy countries may indicate that educational expenditure is not well-correlated with happiness.

Adolescent parents have been repeatedly shown to be less prepared to take care of something as demanding as a baby; furthermore, the sudden arrival of a baby may put other aspirations--career, school, or otherwise--on hold. The inverse correlation of adolescent fertility with happiness seems to indicate that the instability wrought by a large number of teenage parents (compounded by poverty) may negatively affect happiness overall.

Electricity access is something that people in high-happiness countries take for granted. However, it provides many benefits:

• Safety (or at least greater awareness of surroundings. Lights may dissuade criminals or animals from going to a certain location. They also prevent people from accidentally falling over or bumping into obstacles.

• Greater productivity. Lights have historically allowed people to work after natural light conditions have faded.

• Greater access to technology. Electricity allows people--especially women-- to benefit from consumer devices that may allow them to spend less time on menial tasks, such as washing clothes and preserving food. Having electricity also reduces ambient house air pollution, as households without electricity often heat internal spaces or cook in internal spaces with smoky open fires.

Air pollution, whether inside or outside the home, is correlated with negative health outcomes. In fact, air pollution has been shown in a landmark study by the University of Chicago to reduce global life expectancy by almost two years (University of Chicago). Air pollution definitely affects mood--the misery of being cooped up inside, suffering from stinging eyes and lungs, or feeling short of breath is enough to make any person feel blue. With this in mind, air pollution is very strongly correlated with happiness. Less happy countries, which often are quickly industrializing and/or cannot as easily control pollution output, thus have much more air pollution.

This graph charts the impact carbon dioxide damage has on the GNI, or Gross National Income (the total economic output earned by the nation's people). Though carbon dioxide output is correlated with air pollution, this carbon dioxide damage doesn't seem strongly correlated with happiness. This could be due to the fact that the most deleterious pollution comes from larger particles, not carbon dioxide; citizens may also not be able to easily detect the impact of carbon dioxide on the economic output.

This graph charts the impact of resource depletion on the GNI. From this graph, we can see that resource depletion has a medium-to-strong inverse correlation with happiness. However, resource depletion may not be directly correlated; rather, the extenuating factors that are associated with high resource depletion may be more to blame. High resource depletion implies that a nation is either a) undergoing fast industrialization, a phenomenon known to negatively affect human health or b) the nation lacks the oversight and ability to enforce environmental limits. Depletion may be seen as more of a marker of regulartory interest than a directly correlated factor.