Economists are giddy about happiness this week.

The World Bank’s Managing Director of Operations, Graeme Wheeler, has suggested that other countries need to follow Bhutan’s lead in promoting Gross National Happiness as a gauge of national wellbeing, as reported in the Economic Times of India and AFP.

The study of happiness economics is becoming one of serious economic debate by leading academics.

Last week econ-bloggers Tyler Cowen and Will Wilkinson debated Jeffrey Sachs and Betsey Stevenson at Columbia University on whether America is failing in the pursuit of happiness. There is no webcast yet (if there is, it might show up here) but you can get a sense of the ruckus by reading the comments to Cowen’s blog post on the debate.

Today, BBC Radio’s More or Less program will feature a debate between Professors Paul Omerod and Richard Layard at 1630 GMT. They will be discussing whether it is useful (or even plausible) for policymakers to measure human well-being using numbers. A summary and the webcast should be available shortly here. (Thanks to The Undercover Economist for pointing this out).

If you can’t wait for the webcasts, Andrew Oswald has a 1999 paper, A Non-Technical Introduction to the Economics of Happiness, and Nattavudh Powdthavee has a 2007 discussion, Economics of Happiness: A Review of Literature and Applications.

My two cents: economists can’t agree on how to raise gross domestic product, and now they’re supposed to raise global happiness?