You Can’t Buy Happiness

NZ born lecturer of economics at Stanford University, John McMillan, believes that the obsession NZ politicians have with raising the country’s per capita income to equal that of Australia is a waste of time. “Any cross-country comparison of living standards should be taken with a grain of salt. There is no dependable way to do it. If we must do such comparisons, we should look at an eclectic range of measures and make an overall evaluation based on all of them.” For example, he points out, Australia may rank higher than NZ in the per capita income stakes, but NZ enjoys a much higher rating on the Happiness and the Human Development Index.