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Gross national happiness

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  • Winton Bates

Abstract

This article considers the concept of gross national happinesss, as it has evolved in Bhutan, against the background of literature on the pursuit of happiness as a government objective and the problems associated with different approaches to measuring well-being. It concludes that since all measures of well-being are imperfect, including the measure of gross national happiness currently being applied in Bhutan, the best approach is to use a range of different measures, including conventional national accounting indicators. Copyright © 2009 The Author. Journal compilation © 2009 Crawford School of Economics and Government, The Australian National University and Blackwell Publishing Asia Pty Ltd..

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  • Winton Bates, 2009. "Gross national happiness," Asian-Pacific Economic Literature, Asia Pacific School of Economics and Government, The Australian National University, vol. 23(2), pages 1-16, November.
  • Handle: RePEc:bla:apacel:v:23:y:2009:i:2:p:1-16
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    File URL: http://hdl.handle.net/10.1111/j.1467-8411.2009.01235.x
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    3. Erik Brynjolfsson & Avinash Collis & Felix Eggers, 2019. "Using massive online choice experiments to measure changes in well-being," Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences, Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences, vol. 116(15), pages 7250-7255, April.
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    5. N. Wang & M. Kosinski & D. Stillwell & J. Rust, 2014. "Can Well-Being be Measured Using Facebook Status Updates? Validation of Facebook’s Gross National Happiness Index," Social Indicators Research: An International and Interdisciplinary Journal for Quality-of-Life Measurement, Springer, vol. 115(1), pages 483-491, January.
    6. Kristine Klussman & Austin Lee Nichols & Julia Langer & Nicola Curtin & Meghan I. Huntoon Lindeman, 2022. "The Relationship between Mindfulness and Subjective Well-Being: Examining the Indirect Effects of Self-Connection and Meaning in Life," Applied Research in Quality of Life, Springer;International Society for Quality-of-Life Studies, vol. 17(4), pages 2423-2443, August.
    7. Fox, Stephen, 2016. "Open prosperity: How latent realities arising from virtual-social-physical convergence (VSP) increase opportunities for global prosperity," Technology in Society, Elsevier, vol. 44(C), pages 92-103.
    8. Chris Benner & Manuel Pastor, 2015. "Brother, can you spare some time? Sustaining prosperity and social inclusion in America’s metropolitan regions," Urban Studies, Urban Studies Journal Limited, vol. 52(7), pages 1339-1356, May.
    9. Tianhao Yang & Guofeng Gu, 2023. "Spatial–Temporal Evolution and Driving Factors of China’s High-Quality Economic Development," Sustainability, MDPI, vol. 15(23), pages 1-21, November.
    10. Jaka Gerčar & Adriaan van der Weel, 2023. "Reading Health and the Reading Health Index," Societies, MDPI, vol. 13(4), pages 1-8, March.
    11. Abdul Ghafar Ismail & Nurfaradilla Haron, 2014. "Happiness in Economics as Understood Across Ism and Religion," SAGE Open, , vol. 4(4), pages 21582440145, December.
    12. Kibria, Abu S.M.G. & Costanza, Robert & Gasparatos, Alexandros & Soto, José, 2022. "A composite human wellbeing index for ecosystem-dependent communities: A case study in the Sundarbans, Bangladesh," Ecosystem Services, Elsevier, vol. 53(C).
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