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· Perhaps the best know, The UN Human Development Index, launched in 1990 by the Pakistani economist Muhbub ul Haq, measures standard of living along with life-expectancy, literacy, and levels of education.

· The Genuine Progress Indicator, designed in California in the mid-1990s and in use in parts of Canada today, applies some 26 social, economic, and environmental indicators to measure "genuine progress."

· The Guidelines for National Indicators of Subjective Well-Being and Ill-Being, is promoted by leading happiness researcher Ed Diener and a group of 50 prominent psychologists, sociologists, and economists.

· The Happy Planet Index, sponsored by the British New Economics Foundation, attempts to calculate life satisfaction and expectancy in relation to environmental impact. By this index, Vanuatu is #1, Columbia is #2, and Bhutan is #13, leaving the United States, at #150, in the dust.

· The World Database of Happiness, run by the ever-engaging Ruut Veenhoven at Erasmus University in Rotterdam, maintains a trove of data on self-reported well-being from around the world.