Gross National Happiness and Macroeconomic Indicators in the Kingdom of Bhutan

Download or read book Gross National Happiness and Macroeconomic Indicators in the Kingdom of Bhutan written by Sriram Balasubramanian and published by International Monetary Fund. This book was released on 2019-01-16 with total page 26 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: This paper examines the origins and use of the concept of Gross National Happiness (or subjective well-being) in the Kingdom of Bhutan, and the relationship between measured well-being and macroeconomic indicators. While there are only a few national surveys of Gross National Happiness in Bhutan, the concept has been used to guide public policymaking for the country’s various Five-Year Plans. Consistent with the Easterlin Paradox, available evidence indicates that Bhutan’s rapid increase in national income is only weakly associated with increases in measured levels of well-being. It will be important for Bhutan to undertake more frequent Gross National Happiness surveys and evaluations, to better build evidence for comovement of well-being and macroeconomic concepts such as real national income.