This paper examines a famous puzzle in social science. Why do some nations report such high happiness? Denmark, for … Italy do relatively poorly. Yet the explanation for this ranking - one that holds even after adjustment for GDP and socio …

of mental well-being? Denmark, for instance, regularly tops the league table of rich countries' happiness; Britain and … holds after adjustment for GDP and other socioeconomic variables -- is currently unknown. Using data on 131 countries, the …

. This entry also briefly discusses: recent history of well-being measurement; what makes people better off in theory; the …

Per capita GDP has limited use as a well-being indicator because it does not capture many dimensions that imply a "good … life," such as health and equality of opportunity. However, per capita GDP has the virtues of easy interpretation and can … preserves the advantages of per capita GDP, but also includes health and equality. We propose a new parsimonious indicator to …