Gross National Happiness (GNH) is an attempt to define standard of living in more holistic terms than Gross National Product, looking at wellbeing rather than consumption.

The term was coined by Bhutan's King Jigme Singye Wangchuck in 1972. It signalled his commitment to building an economy that would serve Bhutan's unique culture based on Buddhist spiritual values.

Alternative indicators of economic progress have been supported by a number of NGOs such as the UK's New Economics Foundation .

References

• Layard, Richard (2005), Happiness: Lessons from a new Science, The Penguin Press

External links

• Nadia Mustafa, Time, 10 January 2005, "What About Gross National Happiness?" [1]
• Rajni Bakshi, Resurgence, 25 January 2005, "Gross National Happiness" [2]
• "Gross National Happiness - a set of discussion papers", Centre for Bhutan Studies [3]
• Institute of Empirical Research in Economics, Zurich University [4] – Working papers [5] search with "happiness"