Gross national happiness

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.