Revolution is in the air. In its wake come attempts to recalculate the misery index.
This measure is a simple addition of the unemployment and headline inflation rates. It gained attention during the 1970s stagflation. The theory is that when these two basic measures of economic well-being worsen simultaneously, the people’s patience snaps. Democratic regimes lose elections; autocrats suffer revolutions. It might therefore help to indicate where high food prices could turn into political unrest.
Supporting this, Société Générale shows that Tunisia and Egypt had elevated misery indices of 20 per cent at the end of 2010. Conversely, Asia-Pacific should be the world’s happiest region, followed – with some exceptions – by Latin America.
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