It's official - money can't buy happiness

Every day seems to be international day of something or the other. March 20, for example, was the fifth United Nations International Day of Happiness. The next day was UN World Poetry Day, but that's another story.

Few of us would argue against the importance of happiness, or indeed poetry. The challenge comes in trying to quantify such intangibles, particularly on a global scale. It was the tiny Asian state of Bhutan that introduced an index of Gross National Happiness to supplement Gross National Product, on the logic that a country should be judged on the well-being of its citizens and not just its economic output.

The idea caught on and in 2012 independent experts at the Sustainable Development Solutions Network produced the first World Happiness Report under UN auspices. The latest edition was published this week to coincide with the International Day of Happiness.