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Wellbeing![[photo: Richard Layard]](http://cep.lse.ac.uk/staffphotos/layard_small.gif)
The programme director is Professor Lord Richard Layard.Room R453, Tel: +44 (0)20 7955 7281, Email: r.layard@lse.ac.uk People want to be happy. But do we know what makes us happy, or how society is best organised to promote happiness?See staff involved on this programme.
See Well-Being Seminar Series schedule The Wellbeing Programme was founded in 2003 when Richard Layard gave his public lectures on "Happiness: Has social science a clue?" Then followed his book on Happiness. Since then the programme has expanded and includes three main strands:
The happiness debateWe are contributing on the following issues.
On 25 November 2010, the Prime Minister announced that wellbeing would be a major government goal and would be regularly measured by ONS in the national statistics.
This is a basic philosophical issue and in the second edition of Happiness, published in mid-April 2011, Richard Layard devotes a whole new chapter to this issue. Guy Mayraz is studying the effect of happiness on voting behaviour.
In a series of papers we have shown the importance of income comparisons (Does Relative Income Matter? Are the Critics Right? and The Marginal Utility of Income )
Richard Layard is active in the new movement called Action for Happiness which was launched on 12 April 2011. Mental healthMental illness (especially depression and chronic anxiety) is the biggest single cause of misery in advanced countries. But only 1/4 of those who are ill receive treatment. Our programme has helped highlight this problem (including its economic aspects) and bring about a radical new government policy called Improving Access to Psychological Therapies (IAPT). This is now being extended to children, based on recommendations of The Good Childhood Report, co-authored by Richard Layard. We have been involved in ex ante and ex post evaluation of the programme and continue to be so. The clinical advisor to the programme is Professor David Clark (of KCL), and he and Richard Layard are beginning a book for the general public on the importance of mental illness as a source of social and economic ills and on the scope for cost-effective therapy on a very wide scale. Prevention is better than cure. Through the initiative of the Centre, the Penn Resiliency Programme was introduced into 22 English secondary schools in 2007. We are now evaluating it and finding good results for those who most need help. However 18 hours will not change their lives for most youngsters. An hour a week for 4 years has a better chance. This should be based on properly evaluated programmes with known effects. We have searched the world's programmes and are constructing a 4-year programme that we can trial in a properly controlled way. Skills and unemploymentOur work has drawn mainly on earlier research from before 2005. We put formal proposals for reducing youth unemployment which were adopted by the Labour Government but cancelled by the Coalition. Our proposals on Apprenticeship were embodied in the 2009 Act of Parliament. The aim is that by 2015 almost all youngsters will be guaranteed an apprenticeship if they want one. We think this could do more than any other single measure to reduce inequality in Britain.
Selected Writings:HappinessG. Mayraz, "Wishful Thinking", CEP Discussion Paper 1092, November 2011 J. Coleman, D. Hale, and R. Layard, "A Model for the Delivery of Evidence-Based PSHE (Personal Wellbeing) in Secondary Schools", CEP Discussion Paper 1071, August 2011 P. Dolan, D. Fujiwara, R. Metcalfe, "A Step towards Valuing Utility the Marginal and Cardinal Way", CEP Discussion Paper 1062 R. Layard, J. Coleman and D. Hale, "Using tested programmes for secondary PSHE", March 2011, LSE Mimeo A.R. Challen, S. Machin, P. Noden and A. West, Evaluation of the UK Resilience Programme, Final Report (report for the Department for Education), Research Report DFE-RR097, April 2011
G. Mayraz, "Priors and Desires: A Model of Payoff-Dependent Beliefs", CEP Discussion Paper 1047, March 2011 P. Dolan, R. Layard and R. Metcalfe, “Measuring Subjective Well-Being for Public Policy", Office for National Statistics, February 2011 [Paper No' CEPSP23:Full paper] A.R. Challen, S.J. Machin, P. Noden, and A. West, UK Resilience Programme Evaluation: Second Interim Report: DFE, Research Report DFE-RR006, 2010 R. Layard, “Does Relative Income Matter? Are the Critics Right?" (with G. Mayraz and S. Nickell) in E Diener, J Helliwell and D Kahneman (eds) International Differences in Well-Being, Oxford University Press, New York, 2010. R. Layard, “Measuring subjective well-being", Science, Vol 327, Pages 534-5, January 2010 G. Mayraz, J. Schupp, G.Wagner, "Life Satisfaction and Relative Income: Perceptions and Evidence", CEP Discussion Paper 0938, July 2009 R. Layard, "Why subjective well-being should be the measure of progress", given at the OECD World Forum on “Statistics, Knowledge and Policy - Charting Progress, Building Visions, Improving Life", Busan, Korea - 27-30 October 2009 R. Layard, “Well-being Measurement and Public Policy” in A. Krueger (ed) Measuring the Subjective Well-Being of Nations, National Accounts of Time Use and Well-Being, NBER Conference, Report, University of Chicago Press, 2009 R. Layard, "The Greatest Happiness Principle: Its time has come”, Well-being: How to lead the good life and what government should do to help, (eds) S Griffiths and R Reeves, Social Market Foundation, July 2009 A.R., Challen, P. Noden, A.West, and S. Machin, UK Resilience Programme Evaluation - Interim Report, Research Report DCSF-RR094, April 2009
R. Layard, S. Nickell and G. Mayraz “The marginal utility of income", Journal of Public Economics, Special Issue: Happiness and Public Economics (eds) T. Besley and E. Saez, Vol 92, Nos 8-9, August 2008 P. Dolan and R. Metcalfe, "Comparing Willingness-to-Pay and Subjective Well-Being in the Context of Non-Market Goods", CEP Discussion Paper 0890, October 2008 R. Layard, Happiness and public policy: a challenge to the profession, Economic Journal, 116, C24-C33, March 2006 R. Layard, “Rethinking Public Economics: The Implications of Rivalry and Habit” in L. Bruni and P. L. Porta (eds) Economics and Happiness, Oxford University Press, 2005 R. Layard, "The Return of Happiness: Why wellbeing should be at the heart of politics", Prospect, March 2005 Lionel Robbins Memorial Lectures delivered at LSE on 3rd, 4th and 5th March 2003:
Mental healthJ. Costa-Font and M. Jofre-Bonet, "Anorexia, Body Image and Peer Effects: Evidence from a Sample of European Women", CEP Discussion Paper 1098, November 2011 R. Smithies, "A Map of Mental Health", CEP Discussion Paper 0996, September 2010 R. Layard, "Campaign for Psychological Therapy", February 2010 R. Layard, "Improving Tier 2-3 CAMHS: Revised Proposal", August 2009 D. Clark, R. Layard, R. Smithies, D. Richards, R. Suckling and B. Wright, “Improving Access to Psychological Therapy: Initial Evaluation of Two UK Demonstration Sites", Behaviour Research and Therapy, 47(8):637-728, August 2009 R. Layard, "Improving Tier 2-3 CAMHS", July 2009 R. Layard, "Child Mental Health: Key to a Healthier Society", August 2008 D. Clark, R. Layard, M. Knapp and G. Mayraz, “Cost-benefit analysis of psychological therapy”, National Institute Economic Review, No 202, October 2007 R. Layard, "The Teaching of Values", Ashby Lecture, University of Cambridge, 2 May 2007 R. Layard et al, The Depression Report: A New Deal for Depression and Anxiety Disorders, The Centre for Economic Performance's Mental Health Policy group, June 2006 R. Layard, “The case for psychological treatment centres”, BMJ, 332: 1030-2, April 2006 R. Layard, “Mental health: Britain’s biggest social problem?", Paper presented at the No.10 Strategy Unit Seminar on Mental Health, 20th January 2005 R. Layard, "Mental Health: the Choice of Therapy for All", CentrePiece, December 2005 This article is an edited version of the inaugural Sainsbury Centre for Mental Health Lecture delivered on 12 September 2005. Unemployment/skills
R. Layard, Note on unemployment policy and the crisis, IZA Policy Forum - “The Global Economic Crisis and the Labor Markets” 6th IZA Prize in Labor Economics, 22 October 2009 R. Layard and P. Gregg, "A Job Guarantee", March 2009 R. Layard, “Unemployment experience: some implications for France”, Travail et Emploi, DARES, No 118, April-June 2009 R. Layard, S. Nickell and R. Jackman, Unemployment: Macroeconomic Performance and the Labour Market, Oxford University Press, 2nd ed., 2005 R. Layard, “Full Employment for Europe” in (eds) A Lopez-Claros, M Porter and K Schwab The Global Competitiveness Report 2005-2006: Policies Underpinning Rising Prosperity,World Economic Forum, 2005 “Apprenticeship and the skills gap” in “Learning to Succeed: the next decade”, the National Commission on Education Follow-up Group, Occasional Paper, University of Brighton, 2003 “Welfare-to-Work and the Fight against Long-Term Unemployment” (with T. Boeri and S. Nickell), Research Brief No. 206, Department for Education and Skills, London, June 2000
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