Happiness Set to Become an International Issue

April 03, 2012 from Al Jazeera English

More than 600 world leaders, economists, and academics at the United Nations are reassessing the link between happiness and economic prosperity. While a nation's progress is typically measured in financial terms, economists have begun to acknowledge that this does necessarily indicate the well-being of a country's citizens. But, small nations like the Himalayan nation of Bhutan, which bases its development on its "gross national happiness" and is rated among the world's happiest places, may have the right formula. Al Jazeera's Kristen Saloomey reports from New York.

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Popular culture

Popular culture is the entirety of ideas, perspectives, attitudes, memes, images, and other phenomena that are within the mainstream of a given culture, especially Western culture of the early to mid 20th century and the emerging global mainstream of the late 20th and early 21... Explore this topic

Bhutan

Bhutan, officially the Kingdom of Bhutan, is a landlocked state in South Asia located at the eastern end of the Himalayas. It is bordered to the north by China and to the south, east and west by the Republic of India. Further west, it is separated from Nepal by the Indian stat... Explore this topic

Gross national happiness

The assessment of gross national happiness was designed in an attempt to define an indicator that measures quality of life or social progress in more holistic and psychological terms than only the economic indicator of gross domestic product. Explore this topic

Economic growth

Economic growth is the increase in the amount of the goods and services produced by an economy over time. It is conventionally measured as the percent rate of increase in real gross domestic product, or real GDP. Growth is usually calculated in real terms, i.e. inflation-adjus... Explore this topic

United Nations

The United Nations is the world's largest, foremost, and most prominent international organization. The stated aims of the United Nations include promoting and facilitating cooperation in international law, international security, economic development, social progress, human r... Explore this topic

US economy

Throughout this article, the unqualified term "dollar" and the $ symbol refer to the US dollar. The economy of the United States is the world's largest national economy. Its nominal GDP was estimated to be over $15 trillion in 2011, approximately a quarter of nominal global GD... Explore this topic

Jigme Thinley

Lyonchen Jigme Yoser Thinley has been the Prime Minister of Bhutan since April 2008. "Lyonchen" is a title, meaning "prime minister". Explore this topic

World economy

The world economy, or global economy, generally refers to the economy, which is based on economies of all of the world's countries, national economies. Also global economy can be seen as the economy of global society and national economies – as economies of local societies, ma... Explore this topic

Gross national product

Gross national product is the market value of all the products and services produced in one year by labour and property supplied by the residents of a country. Unlike Gross Domestic Product, which defines production based on the geographical location of production, GNP allocat... Explore this topic

Jeffrey Sachs

Jeffrey David Sachs is an American economist and Director of The Earth Institute at Columbia University. One of the youngest economics professors in the history of Harvard University, Sachs became known for his role as an adviser to Eastern European and developing country gove... Explore this topic

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