What does it mean to prosper? Is prosperity merely the accumulation of material wealth? French President Nicolas Sarkozy has remarked that measuring wealth by Gross Domestic Product alone fails to grasp the overall well-being of a population. Is this correct? Are more vacations and universal health care the real secret to a happy life? If not, what is? What explains the great divide in life satisfaction between Denmark and Hong Kong despite their seemingly equal levels of wealth? These questions and more are the subject of the 2009 Prosperity Index.

Developed by the Legatum Institute, an independent policy research organization, the Prosperity Index studies the nature of prosperity and how wealth is created. With the Index, Legatum Institute scholars and researchers hope to contribute to a holistic measurement and a better understanding of prosperity in the twenty-first century. Using a variety of factors including wealth, economic growth, subjective well-being, governance, and quality of life, this year's Index has been expanded significantly and now examines prosperity drivers and outcomes in more than 100 countries.

At this event, Legatum Institute senior vice president William Inboden and senior fellow Ryan Streeter will present the findings of the 2009 Prosperity Index. AEI president Arthur C. Brooks and Brookings Institution senior fellow Carol Graham will respond. Nicholas Eberstadt, AEI's Henry Wendt Scholar in Political Economy, will moderate.