Gross International Happiness

March 30, 2004 8:33 PM

The Gross International Happiness Project. An idea inspired by Gross National Happiness, the Kingdom of Bhutan's alternative to GDP.
posted by homunculus (4 comments total)

There are more good links on Bhutan and GNH at MoFi, Plastic and WorldChanging.
posted by homunculus at 8:47 PM on March 30, 2004

It's reassuring to know that there are economists out there exploring methods of assessing happiness and other immaterial factors in our lives rather than ignoring them altogether due to a lack of precise measurement. Thanks for the great link.
posted by methree at 9:19 PM on March 30, 2004

This isn't a new idea (quality of life indicators have been around forever,) but it's certainly been discarded in recent years so it's good to see a resurgence. A related concept is social capital, which has been endorsed by the World Bank as well as advanced in Robert Putnam's important work, "Bowling Alone."
posted by PrinceValium at 9:29 PM on March 30, 2004

It's like Utilitarianism, but contrived, and stupid!
posted by abcde at 11:42 AM on March 31, 2004