Who tops the Happy Planet Index in 2024?

As some people have been warning for over half a century, Gross Domestic Product is unfit as a measure of progress. GDP growth only tells about how much economic activity is going on, and nothing about whether it’s useful or not, or who is benefiting from it. And yet every politician with a chance of senior leadership in the UK is passionately committed to the idea.

One reason GDP persists is that it’s a nice simple number, and so anyone looking to critique it is expected to present their al...