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Concept
Broad measures of economic progress
Summary
Although for many decades, it was customary to focus on GDP and other measures of national income, there has been growing interest in developing broad measures of economic well-being. National and international approaches include the Beyond GDP programme developed by the European Union, the Better Lives Compendium of Indicators developed by the OECD, as well as many alternative metrics of wellbeing or happiness. One of the earliest attempts to develop such an index at national level was Bhutan's Gross National Happiness Index and there are a now a number of similar projects ongoing around the world, including a project to develop for the UK an assessment of national well-being, commissioned by the Prime Minister David Cameron and led by the Office for National Statistics.
The Gross National Happiness (GNH) phrase was initially used as an off-hand remark by the King of Bhutan to indicate his lack of interest in western materialistic style of economic development. The implementation of the GNH philosophy was meant to prohibit TV and Jeans from becoming part of the culture of the Bhutanese population. Despite modernization of the GNH concept by Karma Ura, Up to date the GNH is seen by some to hide some values that are in contradiction to western lifestyle.
In 2005, a US based think tank, the International Institute of Management, published a working paper followed by a policy white paper in 2006 calling for the implementation of GNH philosophy in the United States. The papers called for a secular and more scientific implementation of a public policy framework and econometric measurement tool also known as Gross National Well-being or GNW and launched the first secular global gross national happiness index survey. Despite, the differences in the visions, both papers credited the King of Bhutan for the inspiration.
The American GNH framework and GNH Index Survey was referenced by various researchers and policy makers as an answer to the failures of unchecked capitalism and hyper-focus on GDP.
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