A regression analysis of the impact of various global Predictor Indices – Index of Economic Freedom (IEF), World Governance Indicators (WGI), Ease of Doing Business (EDB), Mean Years of Schooling (MYS), Global Competitiveness Index (GCI), and GDP per capita – on the World Happiness Index (WHI) as an indicator of the conditions for the efficient development of human capital has been carried out. It has been demonstrated that such Predictors as the WGI, IEF, and GDP per capita are described by the greatest pair correlation with the WHI. It has been revealed that no Predictor provides a satisfactory pair correlation with the Happiness Index (the determination coefficient R2 does not exceed 0.63 for a sample of 24 countries with the highest GDP). The dependence of the Happiness Index on the number of Predictors has two lows with a trend of the fifth-degree polynomial. The dependence of the WHI on comprehensive Predictors, which are a linear combination of the studied indices, has been determined. C-Predictor, which consists of 40 % of the WGI, 22 % of GDP per capita, 16 % of the IEF, 14 % of the MYS, and 8 % of the GCI, provides the best correlation with the Happiness Index. It provides a high coefficient of determination – 0.84 – for a sample of the 24 largest countries by GDP, and 0.90 for 12 countries. The deviation of happiness from the WHI data estimated using the regression model for Russia, China, the USA, and Germany does not exceed 4 %.
Volume 12 | 04-Special Issue
Pages: 467-478
DOI: 10.5373/JARDCS/V12SP4/20201512