For the past century anyone proposing a serious pursuit of zero economic growth was accused of negative, even catastrophic, intentions. But now we are entering a period when accelerating climate change, growing energy scarcity, mounting dysfunction in the financial system, and other factors will make many regions happy simply to maintain the level of economic activity they have already achieved. Of course any society that has focused on economic growth as the principal path to happiness will encounter many problems during the transition to zero growth.
We will witness some zero-growth societies that are peaceful, equitable, and just. Others will be characterized by growing income disparities, deprivation among the poor, environmental destruction, and violent repression.

Japan has for many centuries been an innovator in development of policies that interrelate its population's welfare with economic growth. For 250 years during the Edo period, Japan was an essentially self-sufficient, closed society. In the 1980s it led the world finding new ways to accomplish technological innovation and economic growth. Again it is leading through an effort to understand happiness as something other than a correlate of gross domestic product per capita. The new Institute for Studies in Happiness, Economy, and Society (ISHES) can be an important new institution - a resource not only for Japan but for other societies.