Section2 Group 24Titah Laksamana, Tim Tian, Robin Ni, Flora Huang, Diana Min

GDP and Happiness

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Question 1

Robert Kennedy was right!

We really care about GDP, because it:

• partly measures comprehensive national power, showing how rich and

powerful a region or a country is.

• is a very important indicator of the comprehensive economic

development level for a certain region or a country.

• gives people the minimum standard of living when GDP is in a

appropriate level.

• measures part of the happiness

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Question 2

GDH

Living Standards

Education

Health

Ecological diversity

and resilence

Good GovernanceTime use

Cultural Diversity

Community Vitality

Psychological Well -

being

What is GDH/ GNH?• It is firstly used by Bhutan

Government• It has 9 Domains and 33 Categories• Each of categories has different

weight • Used different threshold to measure

“not yet happy people” and “happy people”

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Question 2

We prefer GDP over GDH because several reasons:

• GDP is objective measurement, reflecting status quo of national economy.

• GDH domains and indicators are relatively subjective

• Difficult to get an accurate quantitative measurement on happiness

• Government may be able to change GDH result to suits their interest

• Difficult to assess happiness and progress in other countries

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Question 3Happiness Rank in

2012 City GDP(RMB billion)

1 Lhasa 26

2 Taiyuan 231

3 Hefei 416

4 Tianjin 1289

5 Changsha 640

6 Hohhot 102

7 Shijiazhuang 450

8 Jinan 350

9 Yinchuan 114

10 Chongqin 1146

Shanghai 2010

Beijing 1780

Guangzhou 1350

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Question 3

High GDP in China is always means:

• People in high GDP areas or countries often work much harder than in low GDP areas.

• Human nature is greedy. People feel less happy in advanced area because they know

more and then want more.

• Serious environment pollution.

• Abandoning sustainable development.

• Labor intensive industries.

• Low-end work such as manufacturing companies.

All these will probably reduce people’s sense of happiness!

GDP can not measure the quality of life!

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