Your post reminds me of Alan Krueger at the Global Well-being Forum, an economist who pointed out that the most of what is important to people’s well-being happens outside markets. The Gross Domestic Product misses non-market goods, misses consumer surpluses, and misses the real difference in value to people of water and diamonds. My local community is in the middle of a drought, so we are becoming increasingly aware of the value of water.

I just looked, and found an article by him, Danny Kahneman, David Schkade, Norbert Schwartz, and Arthur Stone titled Toward National Well-being Accounts http://www.krueger.princeton.edu/Toward%20Well-Being.pdf. It’s worth tacking on to your discussion.