Harvard Business Review – The Conversation

8:49 AM Monday June 14, 2010
by Lisa Napoli  | 

Quality of life researcher Talita Greyline, an economist at the University of Johannesberg, was simultaneously hopeful and skeptical when she traveled from South Africa to Burlington, Vermont, for the Gross National Happiness USA conference. Being from a place with unemployment of 45% and, as she said, “not that much happiness,” she was eager to learn how she might help change the lives of people in her country. But, she said, “From an economist’s point of view, it’s very funny, because happiness is not objectively measurable.”

There’s a new movement around the world among social scientists, economists and community leaders to measure quality of life — and to factor it into the metrics used to gauge the health of the economy. Disenchantment with the Gross Domestic Product, a widely used figure that calculates all the goods and services an economy produces, is fueling the shift. Its detractors say GDP paints an incomplete picture. Read whole article.