This paper presents a new human happiness index built through five dimensions: development, freedom, solidarity, justice and peace. These five dimensions are evaluated through quantitative variables obtained from the Human Development Reports, World Data Bank and Eurostat. The new happiness index has been built following the guidelines set by the Human Development Reports of the UN for the construction of quality indices, and it has been compared on a set of 13 EU countries with the Overall Life Satisfaction Index, which is used by the UN. Moreover, the new index has been included in a dynamic mathematical model through the demographic rates to study the evolution of the population. The obtained model has been calibrated for the period 2004-2009 and validated for the period 2010-2015 for the case of Spain. Finally, the model has been used to maximize the happiness index in Spain for the period 2016-2030, with the conclusion that to achieve this purpose, it is necessary to invest in education, research and development. (C) 2018 Elsevier B.V. All rights reserved.