World Happiness Report 2023 95 To us, these results do not represent evidence against the theory. In fact, the feedback effects as well as the common drivers we have stressed throughout the chapter mean that we cannot learn much from the individual variation in different aspects of state effectiveness. A better approach is to use state types as a summary of state effectiveness showing that average happiness levels in countries are related to the assignment of a country to a state type. In this spirit, the right-hand graph of Figure 3.5 shows the results from a regression of average life satisfaction on two dummies, one for special- interest states and another for common-interest states (weak states being the left-out category). The classification is derived from our clustering analysis in Figure 3.2 and also corresponds to the coloring of the observations in Figures 3.3 and 3.4. As expected from those figures, both coefficients are positive and statistically significant. Moreover, they are substantial in magnitude. Living in a special-interest state, rather than a weak state, is associated with almost a full point higher score on the 10-point Cantril Ladder, while living in a common-interest state is associated with more than 2 points higher life satisfaction.35 This finding summarizes, in a nutshell, the main message of the chapter: a set of mutually occurring and reinforcing attributes of state performance work together to support the well-being of citizens. Moreover, although marginal improvements in state capacity and peace can be valuable, the big picture is making the transition to a common- interest state with all of its positive attributes, a transition we believe is supported by cohesive norms and institutions. The level vs dispersion of happiness An additional implication of the theory is that we would expect the dispersion, and not just the level, of life satisfaction to vary systematically with the effectiveness of the state. This is because the Photo by Yukon Haughton on Unsplash
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