Happiness Index Discussion

As the index system to measure the economic production, Gross Domestic Product (GDP) has won the appreciation all around the world. However, GDP can only compile the statistics of the value of production and services in a country (or a region) in one year. This index system lays too much emphasis on the economic value and the growth rate, but it ignores the cost which is brought by the economic development. Such cost includes resource exhaustion, environment production, social instability, income abyss, public production and so on. In 1972, the King of Bhutan put forward Gross National Happiness (GNH) to take the place of GDP. This deed has made the small country in the south Asia the focus of world attention.This thesis summarizes the theory and practice about "Happiness Index", and has a try to end the controversy on the definition of the index in the academic field. The thesis give the index a clear meaning, i.e. "Happiness Index" is a index system to measure the subjective happiness feeling. The thesis analyzes the factors which influence the subjective happiness. The factors include individual factors, population and social factors, economics factors, situational factors and institutional factors. On the basis of realization of factors and the statistics produced by the former survey, the thesis analyzes the happiness index and explains the behavior of pursuing happiness. Finally, the thesis analyzes the guideline of the construction of this index dialectically for the economic department in China.