The World Happiness Report is an annual UN Sustainable Development Solutions Network publication. The first of this was published in 2011, in line with the Bhutanese Resolution passed by the UN General Assembly in June 2011 that invited national governments to “give more importance to happiness and well-being in determining how to achieve and measure social and economic development.” The report contains scores for national happiness (so-called ladder scores, ranging from 0 to 10, with 0 being the worst and 10 being the best possible score) and positive and negative affect (measures of emotions). A special topic in the 2021 World Happiness Report is the effect of the COVID-19 pandemic on people all over the world. To analyze this, the report provides the change in scores in the year 2020 as compared to the average relevant scores for the years 2017 to 2019.

Using the data file Happiness Report Data, analyze the variables LadderChange, PosAffectChange, and NegAffectChange, and prepare a short report indicating how well the United Nations succeeded in keeping these variables unaffected by COVID-19. Assume normality and data to be representative samples.