The remote Himalayan kingdom uses Gross Happiness Product, or GHP, as a measuring index. For example, the country has very little advertising because its government decided it wouldn't make people any happier.
Mark Holder, one of Canada's leading academics on the study of happiness, says the idea has merit. Countries have gotten wealthier over the past few decades, but not any happier, he argues.
In 2002, former British prime minister Tony Blair seemed to take an interest in the idea when his staff published a paper analyzing how happiness might affect government policy.
Once people are above the poverty line, happiness does not grow with wealth, says Holder. He says eventually, the success of a country will not be judged on wealth alone, using traditional indexes, but on the well-being of its people.
Canada and Mexico are among the top 15 happiest countries in the world -- ahead of the U.S., despite being less wealthy than the States.
The ranking is compiled by the World Database of Happiness, which is maintained by Ruut Veenhoven, one of the world's leading happiness researchers based at the Erasmus University Rotterdam in the Netherlands.
Denmark, Switzerland and Austria are the world's happiest countries, according to the database.
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