The Happy Planet Index does away with GDP in favor of a formula that includes happiness and personal well-being. It upends what you think of as successful countries.

India and Brazil have had explosive growth over the last decade. Or have they? A new measurement of the true wealth of nations finds that what countries give up for a rise in GDP may be incredibly costly.

Increased economic growth doesn’t necessarily lead to more fulfillment. So why do we consider GDP to be the most important factor? In an excerpt from The End of Growth: Adapting to Our New Economic Reality, Richard Heinberg argues it’s time to start paying more attention to national happiness instead.

In the aftermath of the recession, we have the opportunity to truly change the system. From replacing outsourcing with insourcing to untying well-being from GDP, here is what the economy of the future might look like.

China is the future, as you may have heard. But that future has not quite yet arrived. And the fact is, in 20 years China won't be quite like any country in the West -- no matter how China evolves, it's not going to be some neophyte version of a stable Western country. It'll be a behemoth quite unlike any other developed nation in the world.

You can get a taste of just why that is in this infographic from The Guardian, which shows how China and the U.S. compare on various metrics, ranging from GDP per capita to their respective movie industries: