David Halpern introduces his new book, The Hidden Wealth of Nations, as a book about ‘the parallel world of relationships and habits that forms the backdrop to much of the chatter about contemporary politics’. His argument is that ‘our relationships to those around us – not just family but strangers too’ have significant impacts on our well-being but are not captured in standard measures such as GDP per capita, helping to explain the paradox that contemporary industrialised societies do not grow happier as they grow richer. His book sets out to explore the nature of this hidden wealth, how it has changed over time and whether and how policy can support the ‘alternative world of relationships and exchange’.

Of course, the idea that money is not a sufficient condition for happiness is not a new one, and has enjoyed a resurgence of interest and research focus in recent years, for example through the work of Richard Easterlin, Richard Layard, Andrew Oswald and many others. Halpern is fully aware of this and much of the book does the very useful job of pulling together what we know about subjective well-being and the various factors that affect it. But the title – which is brilliant and perhaps coins a phrase which will run and run – raises expectations that the book will bring us more than this, providing a wider theory which will pull things together so that the material forms more than the sum of its parts.

The book does not quite manage this. In essence, it is a collection of very interesting essays on an ambitiously broad set of topics, very loosely covered by the umbrella concept of our relations with each other. It includes, for example, chapters on prosperity and well-being, fairness and inclusion and power and governance, while sub-sections range from terror to targets and from cultural capital to behavioural economics. Written in an engaging, conversational style, each section blends research evidence with Halpern's own position and policy proposals. Halpern's background is important context for the book: he worked in the Prime Minister's Strategy Unit under Tony Blair from 2001 to 2007, and explains in the Preface that the book was originally conceived as a series of short articles pulling together and updating conclusions from papers he had worked on there.

The Preface also makes clear that this is not a ‘kiss and tell’ history of Halpern's time in government, and I must confess that I would not have minded just a little more kiss and tell. I enjoyed the brief glimpses we were given into life in the PMSU, including an appendix in which Halpern reflects on the difficult hierarchies involved in working in a leader's office, which he likens to a court.

However, this is a book about the substance of policy rather than how policy is made, and it is packed with fascinating facts and examples. Among my personal favourites were the facts that college students with a ‘real’ smile in their yearbook photos were more likely to have successful and lasting marriages and the discussion of the impact of neighbourhood design on well-being, but almost every page is rich with similar detail. It is equally brimming with ideas for policy reform, including (to name just three among hundreds) complementary currencies, more generous capital endowments at 18 and the legalisation (or medicalisation) of drugs such as heroin (an idea that Halpern admits is in the book ‘partly to spice things up’).

Most readers will find plenty here to disagree with. I was unconvinced, for instance, by the argument that one of the reasons Labour failed to do more to increase social mobility was because it focused too heavily on income and not on other forms of inequality, including cultural and social capital and soft skills, and I was also disappointed that Halpern had nothing more to say about tackling income poverty than to recommend ‘continued expansion in in-work benefits and refinements to the incapacity benefit regime’. As he points out, ‘people at the bottom of the pile’ continue to have much worse outcomes on most of the outcome indicators he is interested in, and hence socio-economic inequality seems to underlie the entire subject matter of the book and to merit more extensive treatment. To pick another topic, I was unsure how Halpern reached the conclusion that volunteering should be made compulsory for six hours a year, after an insightful discussion of the dangers of ‘crowding out’ intrinsic motivation.

But perhaps this is really the point. The book can be seen as an attempt to start – or continue – a debate. There is a rather charming footnote where Halpern makes this explicit. In writing about some of his policy ideas for rejuvenating volunteering and local currencies, he notes that a colleague suggested he try to think bigger, and says, ‘I've had a bit of a go at it, but its such a big question, let me extend his challenge to you, the reader, too.’ Certainly, for a reader interested in human well-being and what policy can do to improve it, this book will be a stimulating springboard.