The Happy Planet Index

In the words of Robert F. Kennedy, why does Gross National Product "measure everything [...] except that which makes life worthwhile"? Happiness and health are what we really want, but we have the perception that those things can be measured on an economic scale. If happiness is what we want most, why aren't we measuring it directly?

Good news: statistician Nic Marks does just that. Watch as Marks explains the Happy Planet Index, his alternative to GDP, and what it tells us about which countries are really the happiest.

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Statistician and founder of the Centre for Well-Being at the New Economics Foundation, Nic Marks presented this lecture for the TED Talks.

Interested?

• Why is Costa Rica Smiling?: How a focus on peace is helping this Central American country top the Happy Planet Index.

• Measuring Real Wealth: There's more to life than GDP.
• Want the Good Life? Your Neighbors Need It, Too: Research shows that what the healthiest and happiest societies have in common is not that they have more, but that what they have is more equitably shared.