engleski

The impact of economic growth on the happiness of the population with a review on happy planet index

The purpose of this paper is to show the influence of economic growth, i.e. growth of GDP on the happiness of the population and its general impact on the national economy. The difference between economic growth and economic development is in the scope of the terms they describe. Economic growth is just one of the variables of the national economy which influences economic development, alongside inflation, unemployment, and fluctuations of the exchange rate. Moreover, this paper presents the movement of Croatian GDP, as the most important economic variable, over the last twenty-five years. According to the GDP criteria, the Republic of Croatia is at the bottom of the list of European countries, but according to the Happy Planet Index (HPI) – an index which measures the happiness of the population, the Republic of Croatia is positioned above some more developed countries of the European Union. For this reason, a comparison was made with Germany and there is a description of the parameters that make the Croatian population happier than the German population. Also, this paper includes an empirical study that has been conducted on the sample of the Croatian population in Virovitica-Podravina County that shows what has an impact on their happiness. The study was conducted by the electronic survey, whereby a questionnaire was created using Google Forms, which was shared via e-mails and social networks such as Facebook and Instagram.

economic growth, GDP, population, happiness, HPI

Zbornik je indeksiran u Web of Science, EBSCOhost, RePEc, EconPapers, Socionet