So now we have a new success indicator - the happiness index.
President Nicolas Sarkozy's talk of creating a new growth and well-being index for France is part of a mounting global campaign that many economists believe will shape civilisation and democracy in the 21st century.

Sarkozy presented his recruitment of Nobel prize-winning economists Jospeh Stiglitz and Amartya Sen to work on a quality-of-life index as part of a "policy of civilisation" to reform French institutions.

"We must change the way we measure growth," he declared last week.

This puts France among well over 100 countries in which work is being done on putting quality-of-life, or so-called "happiness" indicators, into the measurement of growth. The list ranges from the Himalayan kingdom of Bhutan to the United States, and the European Union is doing extensive work on the subject. Australia has taken a lead.

The main measurement of growth is gross domestic product quantifying the production of goods and services. Many organisations also produce indicators of well-being on such matters as damage to the environment, corruption, respect for Parliament and the law, religious and family life, education and personal fulfilment.

Stiglitz said economists have felt for a long time that GDP is not a good measure because "it doesn't measure changes in well-being ... It doesn't necessarily mean that there will be a replacement of current measures, but maybe a construction of complementary measures.

"I think that on all sides of the political spectrum there is a recognition of these deficiencies ... no matter whether you are on the left or the right," he said.

The Paris-based Organisation for Economic Cooperation and Development has been working for three years on ways to make economic statistics meaningful to people and is engaged with other international bodies on a global project on "measuring the progress of society".
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