How Optimism Strengthens Economies (Bloomberg Businessweek)

From the article:

Over the short term, it’s unsurprising that fast economic growth makes people more optimistic. Over the long term—periods of 15 years—it appears that happiness and optimism are a driving force behind even stronger economic performance, encouraging risk, experimentation, and hard work, according to a cross-country analysis by Stefano Bartolini of the University of Siena. Some of Bartolini’s colleagues found that higher surveyed happiness was associated with more rapid productivity growth across Europe from 2004 to 2010. On a point scale with 10 being extremely satisfied, the average response from Greece in 2006 was 6.2, compared with 8 in Switzerland and 8.5 in Denmark. Greeks were relatively depressed even before the global financial crisis, from which they emerged for the worse.

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