World Happiness Report 2012

by John F. Helliwell, Richard Layard, Jeffrey D. Sachs

The 2012 World Happiness Report, published by the Earth Institute and co-edited by the institute’s director, Jeffrey Sachs, reflects a new worldwide demand for more attention to happiness and absence of misery as criteria for government policy. It reviews the state of happiness in the world today and shows how the new science of happiness explains personal and national variations in happiness.

170 pages, Kindle Edition

First published April 1, 2012

About the author

John F. Helliwell, is a Canadian economist and editor of the World Happiness Report. He is a Senior Fellow of the Canadian Institute for Advanced Research (CIFAR) and Co-Director of the CIFAR Programme on Social Interactions, Identity, and Well-Being; Board Director of the International Positive Psychology Association, and Professor Emeritus of Economics at the University of British Columbia.

Reviews

[JP · Rating 4 out of 5]

Great report about the current state of World Happiness, the issues and potential solutions. Of course, being that it is a report published by the UN, there is a lot of diplomatic talk and unnecessarily lengthy portions (hence the one-star reduction). Nonetheless, the information and formatting is nice and crisp! Although I have read large portions of some of the other reports too, I especially like this one as it is the first and lays the groundwork for what is to come. Also, it is nice and scientific :D

Thank you John Helliwell!

[Ahmed Ezzeldien · Rating 2 out of 5]

A great and respected effort, I initially imagined it would be a table and a classification, but the book also contains the references and factors that helped in that classification.

Two stars only because this version is somewhat old, and I will read the newer versions to see the evolution of my country's ranking in this report :D