Everyone has opinions about what makes societies thrive. Some say it's freedom. Others say it's equality. Many point to democracy. But what does the data actually show?
We wanted to cut through the noise and let the numbers speak. So we gathered data from 150+ countries and asked a simple question: which ideas actually correlate with people living better lives?
Let's be honest: correlation isn't causation. We can't prove that economic freedom causes better outcomes. We can't run experiments on entire nations or rewind history to test different policies.
But here's the thing — when you're studying something as complex as human societies, correlation is often the best tool we have. And when you see the same patterns showing up again and again, across different metrics, from different organizations, covering different aspects of life... that's worth paying attention to.
Think of this as a compass, not a GPS. It points in a direction, even if it can't tell you exactly how to get there.
We pull fresh data from trusted sources — the World Bank, UN, Heritage Foundation, and others. No cherry-picking, no outdated numbers.
We line up countries across all datasets. If a country doesn't have data for a specific metric, we leave it out of that comparison. Simple as that.
We calculate Pearson correlations — a standard way to measure how strongly two things move together. Higher number = stronger relationship.
We test for statistical significance (p < 0.05). This tells us whether the pattern is real or just random noise. Spoiler: the patterns here are real.
We don't make anything up. Every number comes from established international organizations:
Not sure what a correlation of 0.7 means? Here's a quick guide:
For context: Jacob Cohen's landmark 1988 work established that in social science, r = 0.5 counts as a "large" effect (Cohen, 1988). Most published findings don't come close. The correlations here are above 0.5 — that's rare.
Spotted a mistake? Have an idea? Just want to say hi? We're real people and we read every message. Drop us a line — we'd love to hear from you.