‘The Happiness Manifesto’: Can a Country Be as Happy as a Duck in Water?

The United Kingdom’s Prime Minister David Cameron plans to create a national well-being index. French President Nicolas Sarkozy has formed a team that includes two Nobel Prize-winning economists to come up with a system for measuring the nation’s well-being. In China, happiness indexes have become so popular that cities there compete for the title of China’s happiest city. Many now argue that purely economic measures … [ Read more ]

The Happy Planet Index

Statistician Nic Marks asks why we measure a nation’s success by its productivity — instead of by the happiness and well-being of its people. He introduces the Happy Planet Index, which tracks national well-being against resource use (because a happy life doesn’t have to cost the earth). Which countries rank highest in the HPI? You might be surprised.