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By Simon Briscoe in London / Financial Times

The top 10 in the list of "greenest and happiest" nations is dominated by Latin America and the Caribbean

That the top 10 in the list of "greenest and happiest" nations is dominated by Latin America might raise a few eyebrows, as the region is better known in the western imagination for its slums, inequality and coups.

But the Latin Americans score highly, the report suggests, due to non-material aspirations and strong social capital among friends and relatives. The grim performance of the developed world might also prompt some westerners to cast doubt over the value of the report. Among the rich nations, the highest placed country is the Netherlands — but it manages only 43rd.

Costa Rica, the country of fewer than 5m people sandwiched between Panama and Nicaragua, tops a new global ranking for combining a happy and long life with limited environmental degradation.

The country blends beautiful countryside, a great diversity of species and has long since got rid of its army. The merger of its energy and environment ministries has reversed deforestation and helped it produce 99 per cent of its energy from renewable sources. It has also scored highly, relative to other developing countries, in surveys of poverty, press freedom and democracy.

The Happy Planet Index, "Why good lives don’t have to cost the earth", published by the UK-based new economics foundation, combines measures of life expectancy, happiness and ecological footprint to assess the sustainability of growth in 143 countries.

The challenge for the west, the report says, is not to keep increasing incomes but to aim for more meaningful lives and stronger social ties. >>> Go to Full Story >>>

 

The Mexican Economy: Following Closely in Its Neighbor's Footsteps

From Universia-Knowledge@ Wharton

The pessimistic economic forecasts about Mexico have proven to be right. Day by day, the Latin American nation is becoming increasingly affected by the economic crisis. Its GDP for the first quarter of 2009 fell 8.2% from last year, according to INEGI, the National Institute of Statistics and Geography. Agustin Carstens, Mexico's finance minister, recently declared that the government has adjusted its expectations for 2009. It now expects the GDP to contract by 5.5%, compared with the government's previous estimate of 4%.

Carstens added that the prospects for the country for the rest of the year are also not encouraging when it comes to data about production, employment and other indicators, because they will be compared with the positive figures for last year "before the deepest period in the crisis." This is the worst slide in the Mexican economy since 1995, when the GDP collapsed by 9.2% amidst the "tequila crisis." That crisis was set off at the end of 1994 when the Mexican government made the decision to devalue its currency, leading to capital flight to several countries and the virtual suspension of voluntary external financing. The United States then made US$20 billion in funding available to Mexico, and by the end of 1995, the situation had already normalized.

According to Mauro Guillén, director of Wharton's Lauder Institute, "Mexico's problem is its overdependence on the North American market. Almost 90% of its exports are sent to the giant to the north (the U.S.)." Nevertheless, he adds, "although the situation is very delicate, at least the banks don't have problems. This is the big difference from 1994-1995." Juan Carlos Martínez Lázaro, a professor at the IE Business School, agrees with Guillén and adds that the swine flu outbreak has aggravated a decline that was already going to be very significant. "The forecasts were calling for the economy to fall, at first by 3%, but then they talked of about 4.5%. Now, it is considered a given that the economy is going to fall by 5%, and there are some studies that estimate that the fall will be closer to 7%. There is going to be a very strong contraction in the Mexican economy."     >>>>Go to Full Story >>>