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BG seminar: 26 November 2004
Happiness and public policy
12.30pm to 2.00pm
Room 828, Institute of Education (refreshments will be available from 12pm)
Richard Layard of the London School of Economics and Political Science will be presenting.
Despite economic growth, longer holidays and better health, happiness has stagnated in Britain over the last 50 years. The main reason has been excessive focus on incentives for individual wealth creation and inadequate focus on the practical ways in which misery can be reduced and happiness increased. Policy implications include the following.
- Since much income generation is aimed at improving relative income (a zero-sum game), taxation is less inefficient than is usually supposed.
- Far more resources should go on treating mental illness.
- There is no need to increase mobility, which increases crime and damages families.
- Excessive individualism generates anxiety and should be replaced by a new commitment to the common good (i.e. the greatest happiness of all).
Richard Layard founded the Centre for Economic Performance at the London School of Economics and is now Director of its Well-Being Programme. He has written widely on unemployment, inflation, education, inequality and post-communist reform. His work inspired the Labour Government’s New Deal for the Unemployed. Since 2000 he has been a member of the House of Lords.
This event is free of charge.
To register your attendance, please contact Estella Campbell, email:bgpa@bg.ioe.ac.uk or tel: 020 7612 6900
For further details please see the Institute of Education:
http://ioewebserver.ioe.ac.uk/ioe/cms/get.asp?cid=6186&6186_0=8410
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