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This question asks about the correlation between political system and economic growth. A similar but distinctly different question: is there any correlation between political system and one of the various indices trying to quantify quality of life? I'm thinking about:

  • Human Development Index
  • Inequality-adjusted Human Development Index
  • Quality of Life Index
  • Happy Planet Index

Famously, the only country that has a high Human Development Index and a sustainable Ecological Footprint is Cuba:

plot of HDI versus Ecological Footprint

(source: Wikipedia)

That would argue in favour of the Cuban political and economic system as far as the tradeoff between planet and people is concerned, but famously, one data point is not enough. Are there any more in-depth statistics trying to correlate (and study the reasons for correlation) between political systems, human welfare, and ecological footprints?

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gerrit
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    I have one data point which demolishes this easily. If quality of life in Cuba is so high, how come none of those Mexicans wishing to leave their country immigrate to Cuba instead of going to USA? Or for that matter, why don't all those people in USA like Mike Moor extolling how great life in Cuba is move there? People aren't THAT stupid that every single one of them who tries to move chooses a worse off option over optimal one. – user4012 Dec 06 '12 at 19:21
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    @DVK What exactly does that "demolish"? HDI in Mexico and Cuba are more or less the same. Cuba has 0.776, Mexico has 0.770, US has 0.910. Cuba has no IHDI data, but Mexico and US data are skewed due to very high inequality. But for those attempting to get rich (such as Mexicans and those Cubans attempting to leave) the US provides more opportunities than Cuba. – gerrit Dec 06 '12 at 20:27
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    HDI statistics are about life expectancy at birth, GDP/capita and literacy rate. Life expectancy at birth is higher in Cuba (78.3 yr) than in the USA (78.2 yr). US and Cuba both have full literacy, in Mexico it's lower (86.1%). As for ecological footprint, it's carrying capacity is 1.8 global hectares per person. Cuba has 1.85 gha/person, Mexico 3.00 gha/person, US a staggering 8.00 gha/person. Now I don't claim Cubans lead a better life than US-Americans, but they do lead a more ecological life. Clearly ecology is not those Mexicans 1st concern. – gerrit Dec 06 '12 at 20:34
  • this was covered on Skeptics SE. Life expectancy comparison between countris is not a good idea due to both the differences in reporting methodologies AND extraneous factors having nothing to do with economics or politics. – user4012 Dec 08 '12 at 01:00
  • Also, seeing that USA's E.F. is listed as 8 and Russia's at 4 (and being intimately familiar with what a dastardly mess Russia/USSR's ecology is), all I can see is that linking some random measurement to how ecologically well the population lives seems rather silly. When your model diametrally opposes the reality, your model is broken, sorry. – user4012 Dec 08 '12 at 01:03
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    The model of the ecological footprint is not random, nor are attempts to measure how well the population lives. They're certainly more relevant than "GDP", which measures only money, whereas money is a poor measurement of what's actually relevant in life (such as health). I'm not saying the other indices are perfect, but at least they try to measure something relevant to quality of life. GDP per capita doesn't even do that (and is flawed by the very reason that it's the mean of a quantity that is distinctly not normally distributed). – gerrit Dec 08 '12 at 11:51
  • @DVK Where has Skeptics SE covered this? I can't find any question covering international life expectancy comparisons. – gerrit Feb 13 '13 at 17:50
  • @gerrit, have you ever been in Cuba? Try to go there and survive for at least 1 year (as I did for 30) with a montlhy salary of 20 USD per month (the current average income) then you can come here and talk about all these meaningless statistics. – yms Feb 16 '13 at 05:27
  • @yms No, I have not. Note that I never claimed Cuba is prosperous. It appears to me that, for such a poor country, healthcare is relatively good (compared to other equally poor countries). Do you have evidence that the statistics on infant mortality and life expectancy are rigged? Is infant mortality in reality very high and do people usually die young from easily cured diseases? Are there frequent famines? I've never been there, and I don't know; I haven't seen much evidence showing that all those indicators are lies. – gerrit Feb 16 '13 at 11:41
  • I do not have evidence that denies or support any of these statistics,but my point is that the indicators you mentioned, alone, do not make a good quality of life,you can live a VERY miserable life, very healthy and educated, until you are 100 years old, it will still be a miserable life. – yms Feb 16 '13 at 18:51
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    @yms Of course. One can have a very miserable life in any country in the world, including the richest ones, and also lead a happy life despite being poor. Happiness is hard to measure, so I stick with measurable quantities. – gerrit Feb 16 '13 at 23:39
  • @gerrit Here is another Cuban speaking from experience. To your point about healthcare, the high quality of it in Cuba is a myth. If you were to ask me, you can put Cuba's healthcare right next to those in center-Africa. The government has just done a really good job of covering it up, skewing the numbers and exporting to the world a very different picture from reality. –  Dec 03 '14 at 21:02
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    @YasmaniLlanes I have heard conflicting testimonies from people who have lived in Cuba, so I can't really comment on that. Perhaps the appearance that Cuba does better than Haiti is false. Naturally, asking only people who have decided to leave will give a biased view. – gerrit Dec 03 '14 at 21:06
  • @YasmaniLlanes If you specifically question a particular claim made by official Cuban statistics (such as literacy rate or health expectancy), it might make for a great question at [Skeptics.SE]. But most criticism I've previously seen for Cuba focussed rather on politics and economy rather and not so much on healthcare. Would you be sceptical of the claim that measurable health indicators show superior healthcare in Cuba compared to countries of similar economic strength? – gerrit Dec 03 '14 at 21:11
  • @YasmaniLlanes See this question on Skeptics. – gerrit Dec 03 '14 at 21:27
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    I am not Cuban, I am Brazilian. And I can confirm that the import of Cuban physicians to Brazil has greately improved our health system. So, if their healthcare is as good as those of Central Africa, then Brazilian healthcare is significantly worse than that. Sure, we have the best aesthetic surgeons of the world, but we also have a population whose health needs are not covered by aesthetic surgery... – Luís Henrique Jan 03 '19 at 09:37

1 Answers1

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Air Quality

There is a relationship between certain political systems and air quality (air quality being one metric of quality-of-life).

An article in the journal Ecological Economics examined 149 areas (42 countries and 107 cities) over a 25-year period and found that:

  • Democracy has a positive causal relationship with air quality (being more democratic causes higher air quality)
  • Presidential systems have better air quality than parliamentary systems (in other words, the presidential/parliamentary variable is a conditioning factor)
  • Strong labor unions depress air quality, whereas strong green movements increase air quality.

The underlying theory here is that democracies respond to the public's demand for public goods. Authoritarian governments are not sensitive to public opinion, so they don't need to provide public goods. This is why it is believed democracies are a causal factor: being a democracy provides incentives for policy-makers to respond to public demands (such as for public goods like clean air).

The original article is available for free here.

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