However, there has long been criticism that, while it accurately captures the growth or contraction of the overall economy, it is a crude tool for describing social health.

The United States, for example, with the world’s largest economy, naturally tops G.D.P. rankings, but it ranks lower by other measures. The United Nations Development Program’s human development index, which incorporates G.D.P. as only one of a number of criteria, ranked Iceland, Norway and Canada the top three spots in 2008, with the United States a distant 15th. The human development indexes also seek to incorporate the value of a long and healthy life, access to knowledge and a decent standard of living.

As an alternative to the developed world’s pursuit of G.D.P., the Himalayan kingdom of Bhutan has chosen to focus on “gross national happiness,” complete with the 4 pillars, the 9 domains and the 72 indicators of happiness.

Mr. Stiglitz noted that recent U.S. Census data showed that over the years 2000-8, America’s median household income fell about 4 percent. But over the same period, he said, G.D.P. — the number on which the media and government were focused — was rising.

“There isn’t a single indicator that can encompass everything,” said Enrico Giovannini, the chairman of the Italian national statistics agency, Istat. “It’s not a question of replacing G.D.P. It’s a question of complementing it with other indicators that can provide other measures of well-being.”

Mr. Giovannini, who until recently was the O.E.C.D.’s chief statistician, said the challenge would be for national authorities to go back and try to begin implementing the commission’s recommendations. He said the best hope was that countries would work out common standards under the auspices of the O.E.C.D., because “otherwise we’ll have a patchwork of indicators.”

Yet for all the enthusiasm of Mr. Sarkozy and the participants at the conference, Mr. Stiglitz, a former adviser to President Bill Clinton, said “putting together the new indicators is not going to happen overnight,” because of the need to gather and test the data.