Economic Indicator: Happiness vs Wealth?

Question

I read somewhere that some social scientist actually proposed something like a happiness index as a measure of how healthy is the society. I was thinking, wouldn't it be a better measure of the quality of the economy compared to economic indicators such as per capita gdp etc?

Answer 1

yes because you can have a country like russia which is growing millionaires like weeds but where the average lifespan is decreasing.

Answer 2

There are already measures of GDP  per capita, and  a human development index that adds measures education and health, so it is not a matter of choosing. one over the other. But since economics is based on utility maximization  there has been a growing interest in  what the utility  people maximize really means,  if utility can mean happiness and whether or not  more money makes people happier once basic needs are met.