Subject Author(s): Med Yones, Jones, IIM, International Institute of Management

Geographic Scope: Global

The Ethical Implications of Value for New Economic Thinking
The above seven metrics were incorporated into the first Global GNH Survey. (by  Med Jones, at the International Institute of Management)

Book: Value Economics (Page 112)
M. R. Griffiths, Governor British Institute of Florence, (Italy)
J. R. Lucas, Fellow British Academy, University of Oxford, (UK)

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ON THE QUESTION OF THE FORMATION OF A NEW PARADIGM OF ECONOMIC THEORY
Since the 1950s, one can observe the formation of new scientific directions on the border of economic theory with other social sciences: economic sociology , economic psychology, etc...

[2006 Med Jones approach] to happiness measurement gives many prospects for the development of economic science. The complexity of this concept is very important to help bring economics to a new level of development.

Journal of Scientific Publications (Page 36)
Osetrov V.N., Senior Lecturer, Department of General Economic Theory,
Ural Federal University, Yekaterinburg
(Russia)

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Beyond the Digital Divide: A Conceptual Framework for Analyzing Knowledge Societies

So we have a Gross National Happiness (GNH) Index proposed in 2006 by the US-based International Institute of Management that considers the cultural trait of being happy and content as a socioeconomic development metric encompassing a society's mental and emotional health. However, with some exceptions, many of these aspects of how a society lives with fulfilling knowledge, have yet to enter into the lexicon of most knowledge policy planners.

Journal of Knowledge Management (2008)
Ravi S Sharma, Elaine W. J. Ng, Mathias Dharmawirya, and Lee Chu Keong.
Wee Kim Wee School of Communication & Information
Nanyang Technological University
Singapore

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The United Nations' Global Happiness Measurement

The [Bhutan] National Happiness Index (GNH) lived for three decades the King’s vision without having attracted much attention in the world. Obviously, in addition to the lack of a universal definition of happiness, [and the difficulty to  be] measured objectively it hindered the Bhutanese initiative to have a global echo… In 2005, Gross National Well-being (GNW) created by economist Med Jones at International Institute of Management… Happiness Planet Index in 2006 led by Nic Mars an activist in London's New Economic Foundation in London… The Paris based OECD established Better Life Index in 2011…. The United Nations General Assembly itself received on 19 July 2011 a decision to compare the state of development of the countries (65/309): "Happiness: the holistic development framework”…  In June 2012, the United Nations General Assembly unanimously adopted a resolution (A / RES / 66/281) that the 20th Anniversary of every year should be the International Day of Happiness.

Professor Geza Ankerl, 
Specialist in International Bodies, Adviser to the United Nations in Geneva
University of Geneva and Budapest University
Hungarian National Library - Economic Sociology

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Gross National Happiness (GNH) - The internationalization of a concept and national challenge.

A second-generation GNH concept, treating happiness as a socioeconomic development metric, was proposed in 2006 by Med Yones, the President of International Institute of Management. The metric measures socioeconomic development by tracking 7 development area including the nation's mental and emotional health GNH value is proposed to be an index function of the total average per capita...The above 7 metrics were incorporated into the first Global GNH Survey...

In Thimphu 24-26 Nov.2008... In a bid to measure happiness the Center for Bhutan Studies (CBS) has constructed a single number Gross National Happiness Index. "The GNH index tries to bring into one number the nine dimensions of GNH" explained Sabina Alkire, the director of Oxford Poverty & Human Development Initiative, who co-authored the study with Dasho Karma Ura, the president of CBS.

Joseph Stiglitz, Nobel Prize for Economics 2001 and former vice president of the Bank world, said at a conference on development in Cleveland USA, 2008, that "standard measures of GNP do not take account for the degradation of the environment and natural resources..".

Francoise Pommaret,
Adjunct Professor at Royal University of Bhutan (Bhutan)
Director of Research, France's National Center for Scientific Research (CNRS.FR)French Ministry of Education and Research. (France)

Restructuring the Global Economy
The current global economic crisis (2008) has its roots in the mindset and lifestyle of people in general.... A new economic index that is centered on wellness rather than material growth needs to be adopted by governments to reframe their policies and programs. GNW or GNH (Gross National Wellness/Happiness) is an index that would fit this requirement. Thus it would be in the fitness of things and conducive to Human Union and Global Harmony that GNH or GNW, a new comprehensive index for socioeconomic growth and development is adopted at the national and global levels. The current economic crisis provides an opportunity for making this transition. In fact this may be the only viable way out to rescue the world from a worsening crisis that is born out of a system that is built on false premises.

Dr. Vijayaraghavan Padmanabhan
Professor at Madras Medical College, Chennai
(India)

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Health Care  and Life Satisfaction in Spain
..the Gross National Well-being (GNW), which was the first of its kind combining subjective measures (satisfaction) and objective data (economic indicators), tracking 7 different areas of wellness. This index set the first framework for future research combining both subjective and objective data... In 2008, the French president Nicolas Sarcozy, assessed by two Nobel Prizes, under the name ‘The Quality Life Commission’, announced a revolutionary plan to include happiness and well-being among the key indicators of economic progress"

Economics Paper: An Empirical Analysis for the Period 2002 - 2014
Iban Ortuzar Fernández, University of Girona
(Spain)

Philosophy & Management's Conference
A composite index proposed by the International Institute of Management pursues the same ambition to quantify happiness, encompassing 7 factors: the economic, the environment, physical health, mental health, well-being at work, the good social, political health. The Stiglitz-Sen-Fitoussi commission, created at the initiative of President Sarkozy in France, also examined the problem. The OECD has launched an interactive indicator "Better Living" which aims to enable everyone to measure and compare their own quality of life by going beyond the traditional framework of Gross Domestic Product statistics. Finally, the UN is taking a close interest in research on new development indicators: it has thus created a "Working Group for a New Development Paradigm.."

Laurent Ledoux, Director of "Philosophy & Management".
Academic Director, Solvay, Brussels School, the Louvain School of Management and HEC Liège. Chairman of the Management Committee of the Federal Public Service for Mobility and Transport (DG of the Belgian Ministry of Transport).
(Belgium)

Report for Congressman Hansen Clarke
21st Century GDP: National Indicators for a New Era: Findings & Recommendations: Congress should prescribe the broad parameters of new, carefully designed supplemental national indicators...[Appendix: Taxonomy of Alternative Indicators: (Page 91 & 93)]…Med Jones’ (proposal)..to measure a generalized GNH by assessing seven different areas of wellness: economic, environmental, physical, mental, workplace, social, and political. Most wellness areas include both subjective results (via survey) and objective data.

Ben Beachy & Justin Zorn, PhDs.
John F. Kennedy School of Government
Harvard University
(USA)

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Happiness Index: A New Standard for Evaluating Rights and Legal Systems
Happiness is a problem worthy of consideration by the legal scholars. In the history of human ideas, happiness has the dual tension of virtue and sensibility... The necessity of jurisprudence to explore the issue of well-being Happiness is a value pursuit that no race, government or nation will reject. It is not only a higher-order value, but also a complex of multiple values, and all other values ​​are Happiness and service... There are many ways to calculate the happiness index. It can be calculated not only through economic data, but also from a psychological point of view. It should also be measured by specific indicators such as legislation, law enforcement, and justice. When the International Institution of Management of the United States conducted a survey on national well-being, it mainly focused on evaluating the quality of democracy, individual freedom, foreign conflicts, and other indicators of political well-being. In terms of social well-being, it mainly focused on internal conflicts and Dispute resolution mechanisms, social discrimination, divorce rates, public interest litigation, crime rates, social security, and other indicators.

China Law Society: China Law Innovation Network - Miaowen Gong Institute of Law
Li Lei Feng, Jurist Tsinghua University
(China)

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Why Happiness?
Happiness research is gaining popularity among scientists as well as in politics and the public. But what exactly does that mean and where does the endeavor to make "happiness" measurable? Already Aristotle described the "happiness" as "the goal of all human aspirations and longings". For thousands of years, the question of happiness and its accessibility in philosophy, at Stammtisch and in literary advisers. But only in recent years has the trend to calculate and compare it...

The sudden focus of politics is only consistent. After all, the overriding goal of policy decisions should be to increase the well-being of the population. Governments that focus exclusively on economic growth can quickly lose track of this goal. They do not always make the most happiness-friendly choices in terms of long-term sustainable development.... As a result, according to American researcher Med Jones, the economic growth by a happier and more balanced population will come on its own. Happier people are not only generally more efficient, but are also in a healthier state of health.

GEO Educational Magazine
Lea Wrobel, Msc. Geographic Development Studies
The University of Bonn
(Germany)

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Policy Innovations for Governance: A Proposal to the Federal Government of Nigeria
These innovations can help manage important policy priorities such as poverty alleviation, economic empowerment, high crime rate, civil conflicts, and risks to states integrity...In Y2000, the United Nations (UN) launched the Millennium Development Goals (MDG) initiative but many countries, including Nigeria lagged behind. The main reason was the lack of integrated decision-making framework and a proper measurement and management system...To comply with the United Nations (UN) happiness and wellbeing initiatives, I looked at various development and public management frameworks... (including the OECD's CMEPSP, 2009). When comparing other happiness and wellbeing frameworks around the world, they appear to be either derived from this (IIM GNW Index of 2005) model or very like its core framework... From a technical point of view, GNW framework and Index innovation did to happiness and wellbeing economics what GDP did to traditional economics; before these metrics, economic measurements were fragmented across sectors and difficult to quantify and manage.

Folasade Adesoye, Permanent Secretary Ministry of Women Affairs and Poverty Alleviation (WAPA)
(Nigeria)

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An Alternative to GDP
A model proposed in 2006 by Med Yones at the International Institute of Management. By measuring seven developmental areas, including the nation's mental and emotional health. GNH becomes an index that gives an average value per inhabitant. The areas measured are the individual's economics, environment, physical, psychology, workplace as well as social and political factors. In Sweden, a lot of this is already measured, but we are missing is a collective term and a common index that gives us the ability to see if developments are improving or deteriorating.

AnnCharlotte Stewart, PhD
Uppsala University
(Sweden)

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The History of Gross National Happiness
From modern political history, one can see happiness emphasized as part of a political philosophy, when the phrase “pursuit of happiness” was used as an important human right in 1776 Declaration of Independence of the United States. However, happiness policy remained an abstract idea, with no specific or real legislative, scientific and economic implementation framework....For about three decades, no real progress was made inside Bhutan...Most western economists considered the Bhutan GNH concept as touchy-feely until the introduction of the first scientific and secular GNH Index in 2005 (also known as GNW Index) by Med Jones, an American Economist at the International Institute of Management. Nicolas Sarkozy started a similar initiative in France calling for the inclusion of happiness and well-being in the criteria for national governance policies. He commissioned two Nobel Laureates and a French Economist, Joseph Stiglitz, Amartya Sen, and Jean Paul Fitoussi to develop a new framework for measuring happiness and well-being to overcome the limitation of GDP.... When comparing the message, language, and recommendations of IIM GNW of 2005 with CMEPSP report of 2009, one can find they are almost identical.

Monica Correa, Professor of History, Economics Department
Universidad Dr. Rafael Belloso Chacín (URBE)
(Argentina)

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Selling Happiness - A Thesis on Strategies in the Pursuit of Happiness
Obviously, due to the subjective weight associated to happiness, it is a difficult metric to quantify...Later on, GNH was recognized as a reliable socioeconomic measurement tool. An attempt to compute this approach was Med Jones's formula. Jones as stated that national policies had to be reviewed and new perspectives had to take into account happiness national outcomes and not just economic and businesses results (Jones, 2006) ....All those indicators being computed via direct survey and statistical measurements .(Jones, 2006). These indicators were also incorporated in the first Global GNH Survey (Jones, 2006)

Ana Sofia Faustino Rodrigues
ISCTE Business School
University of Lisbon
(Portugal)

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Dalai Lama and Laurens van den Muyzenberg. What Buddhism Can bring to the managers?
Professor Daniel Kahneman, Princeton University psychologist, Nobel Prize for Economics in 2002...According to his research, happiness can be measured by following a day reconstruction method, which consists of recalling memories of the day previous work by writing a diary. In 2006, a second series of measurements and contents of the BNB (GNH) is proposed by Med Yones, President of the International Institute of Management. Its metric measurement system socio-economic includes the mental and emotional well-being of a given country and the value of BNB, which is a function of indices of all the average per capita of (seven wellbeing dimensions).

Librairie Vuibert, Paris, 201 pages. (Page 27)
Ye YAO, Master in Prospective, Strategy, Organization
Under the supervision of Prof. Yvon PESQUEUX
Conservatoire national des arts et métiers (CNAM) France

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An Econometric Solution for Lebanon's Public Policy Management
The study explores groundbreaking and popular proposals that can be used for development for the Lebanese government... Upon analysis of the four measurement systems, it appears that the most important transformative developments originated by researchers at independent private think tanks, namely the GNW Index... The multidimensional integration of Gross National Wellbeing Index shifted the definition from psychology to economics and allowed economists to compute wellbeing as one metric to serve as a proxy to measure government performance, citizens wellbeing and development. Upon detailed analysis, it is clear that the OECD Better Life Index, BLI (2012) is based on CMEPSP Framework recommendations (2009) and both of them are strikingly similar to the original Gross National Wellbeing (2005).

Wardeh Safieh
MBA & Accounting Information Systems Program
Lebanese International University (LIU)

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Sustainable Consumption Research and Action Initiative (SCORAI)
..feasibilities of using design for sustainable consumption and development will be constructed on the basis of historical and theoretical perspectives of research relevant to the problem, discovered by SCORAI network... A professor of economics Deirdre McCloskey (Chicago University) argues that a sense of happiness are the words of particular moment but the first Gross National Happiness (GNH) Survey analysed satisfaction of people using seven different indicator, including capability to satisfy economic conditions and quality of live environment: economic satisfaction (savings, debt and purchase power); environmental satisfaction: (pollution, noise and traffic); workplace satisfaction (job satisfaction, motivation, ethics, conflict, etc.); physical health (severe illnesses, overweight); mental health (usage of antidepressants, self-esteem, positive outlook); social satisfaction, including family and relationship satisfaction (domestic disputes, communication, support, sex, discrimination, safety, divorce rates, complaints of domestic conflicts and family lawsuits, public lawsuits, crime rates, etc.); political satisfaction (quality of local democracy, individual freedom, and foreign conflicts, etc.)  (Jones).... there is an apparent difference in providing social wellbeing by GDP and GNH indexes: the first one reflects material and economic wealth, the second one social aspect, i.e. satisfaction with life in general.

Research Proceedings,
Professor Dr. Aija Freimane,
Postdoctoral Research Fellow Design Thinking and Paradigm Shift of Design
SCORAI Europe
(Latvia)

Professor Deidre Rose, Ph.D. Anthropologist 
Department of Sociology and Anthropology 
University of Guelph
(Canada)