Costa Rica is a Central American state that, while underdeveloped, touts a culture of “Pura Vida,” which literally translates as ‘Pure Life.’ Unsurprisingly, Costa Rica is ranked as the “happiest” country in the world according to both the World Database of Happiness (Veenhoven, 2013) and the Happy Planet Index (Abdallah et al., 2012). Herein, the measure of happiness will be reviewed against the key MDG indicators and subsequently be discussed in terms of how findings a...

Costa Rica is a Central American state that, while underdeveloped, touts a culture of “Pura Vida,” which literally translates as ‘Pure Life.’ Unsurprisingly, Costa Rica is ranked as the “happiest” country in the world according to both the World Database of Happiness (Veenhoven, 2013) and the Happy Planet Index (Abdallah et al., 2012). Herein, the measure of happiness will be reviewed against the key MDG indicators and subsequently be discussed in terms of how findings a...