🙂 Money & Happiness

Welcome to Latinometrics. We bring you Latin American insights and trends through concise, thought-provoking data visualizations.

Today, Daniel Bilbao joins us to write about happiness and wealth in the world and Latin America.

Two-time Academy Award winner Denzel Washington was once asked about his success and what he thought of the saying “Money doesn’t buy happiness.”

He laughed and replied: “Well… money doesn’t buy happiness… but it’s a heck of a down payment.”

For years that quote has lived in our brains rent-free. Was that just a funny response to an odd question? Or is there truth behind that statement – and if so, how much?

We know from plenty of psychology and economics studies that the Maslow Pyramid is real: after all, it’s hard to be happy if you’re hungry. One needs first and foremost to cover one’s own basic needs (i.e. food and shelter). But what about after – how is happiness affected by income? Are there diminishing returns? Can one have too much money?

Today at Latinometrics, we bring a fun analysis. In this chart, we plot the relative wealth and happiness of countries and see how our countries fare when compared to the world in these two metrics. We’ve made sure we adjusted for purchasing power parity (PPP) and inflation so as to be as close as possible to a real comparison in wealth amongst nations. The results are fascinating.

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