Assignment 1

Income and Happiness: A Simple Predictive Model

1)      Watch the video on the predictive model of happiness by Thomas.

2)      Pick 10 countries that are different from the list of countries picked by Thomas. Just as in Thomas's video do NOT pick the US and India as part of your sample.

3)      To pick your countries, look at the World Happiness Report. Obtain the happiness scores (and not the rankings) of these different 10 countries. Obtain the per capita GDP of the 10 countries you pick from the Excel file provided in the Blackboard item titled, “Per Capita GDP”. Use the data for 2016.

4)      Follow exactly what Thomas did in his video with his data on 10 countries

•        Pick the top 5 rows of data

•        Insert a scatter plot

•        Add the trendline

•        Add the equation for the trendline.

5)      Using your trendline equation for the first 5 rows of data, predict the happiness score for the US and India. Compute the error of your forecast for the US and India.

6)      Repeat steps 4) and 5) above but use your entire data set (all ten rows of data).

7)      In a Word document, write the reasons why your results differ from Thomas’ results.