Community Wellbeing

CEP policy analysis

Domestic abuse: improving risk assessment and response by the police (policy brief)

Domestic abuse remains a pervasive challenge worldwide. According to data from the Office for National Statistics, domestic abuse affects one in five people aged 16 and above in the UK. In 2021, the then Conservative gov...Read more...

Blog

LSE Inequalities:

Mobile internet access is exacerbating household wealth inequality in the Philippines

Mobile connectivity can have a positive economic impact on jobs and incomes. But how does it shape household wealth inequality? Zhiwu Wei, Neil Lee and Yohan Iddawela investigate. The Philippines serves as the ideal case...Read more...

CEP policy analysis

How do you measure a child's wellbeing? (policy brief)

A central question for policy evaluation in the UK is how to measure wellbeing. To address this, wellbeing years (WELLBYs) were developed at the London School of Economics to assign social and economic value to changes i...Read more...

Blog

LSE British Politics and Policy:

Council tax is an unfair mess - here's a system that could work better

The consensus says that it's a bad tax, yet politicians have been shying away from reforming council tax for decades. Paul Cheshire offers an alternative that could be fairer and act as the wealth tax that many are calli...Read more...

Blog

LSE British Politics and Policy:

The problems with Reform UK's immigration policy

Reform UK's policy on irregular immigration of "detect, detain, deport" has been widely criticised on legal and moral grounds. But Alan Manning looks at the practical difficulties with enacting this policy and finds that...Read more...

CEP discussion paper

The social spillovers of homeownership: evidence from institutional investors

We provide novel evidence on the social spillovers of homeownership by exploiting the recent rise of institutional investors purchasing single-family homes and converting them into permanent rentals. Using a granular dif...Read more...

CEP discussion paper

Police effectiveness, geographic specialization, police organization

This paper provides causal evidence that geographic specialization can significantly enhance police effectiveness. Using rich administrative and survey data from Chile, we examine a major reform that subdivided police op...Read more...

External report

Policy Landscape 2025:

Housing (chapter)

As Parliament returns from its summer recess, the Resolution Foundation and UK in a Changing Europe have partnered to produce the Policy Landscape 2025 report - a series of evidence-led, research-based assessments of the...Read more...

CEP discussion paper

Mobile internet connectivity and household wealth in the Philippines

Mobile internet has become a fundamental component of modern infrastructure. In this paper, we consider the impact of mobile internet connectivity on household wealth in the Philippines. We construct a granular measure o...Read more...

CEP occasional paper

The full returns to higher education in the UK

University education is known to generate significant earnings returns, but its full value may be understated without considering its wider effects on individual wellbeing. This paper estimates the complete lifetime retu...Read more...

Blog

LSE Europp:

What is the value of a park?

Parks can be much-loved oases within a city, but quite how important they are when compared to other amenities is tricky to measure. Christian Krekel shows how wellbeing data can be used to put a monetary figure on the v...Read more...

Journal article

Journal of Corporate Finance: Forthcoming

Boards of Banks

Bank board directors are highly independent but possess limited prior banking experience. Using a sample of banks from 90 countries between 2000 and 2020, we find that country-specific characteristics explain most of the...Read more...

Journal article

The Economic Journal: Forthcoming

Monopsony and the Wage Effects of Migration

If labour markets are competitive, migration can only affect native wages via marginal products. But under imperfect competition, migration may also increase wage mark-downs – if firms have greater monopsony power over m...Read more...

Blog

LSE Inequalities:

The Easterlin Paradox revisited: New insights into money and happiness

Fifty years ago, Richard Easterlin asked a fundamental question: does getting richer make us happier? His work gave rise to the Easterlin paradox: while wealthier individuals tend to be happier than poorer people, as cou...Read more...

CentrePiece article

Investing in mental health: the economic benefits of NHS talking therapies

What are the effects of psychological therapies on patients’ employment and earnings? In the first analysis of this question using nationally representative data, Klaudia Rzepnicka, Emma Sharland, Marta Rossa, Ted Dolby,...Read more...

External report

The 2025 UK Wellbeing Report

Nearly 7 million UK people - around 13% of the population aged 16 and above - are estimated to be living below the Happiness Poverty Line. The World Wellbeing Movement defines the Happiness Poverty Line as those who rat...Read more...

CEP occasional paper

Mapping Functions for Wellbeing Measures to Generate WELLBYs for Use in Economic Evaluation

Ideally, outcome measurements for interventions that affect wellbeing would report the standard, ONS recommended, life satisfaction question. Responses to this question directly correspond to WELLBYs, which can be moneti...Read more...

CEP discussion paper

The value of a park in crises: Quantifying the health and wellbeing benefits of green spaces using exogenous variations in use values

Most people consider parks important for their quality of life, yet systematic causal evidence is missing. We exploit exogenous variations in their use values to estimate causal effects. Using a representative household ...Read more...

Government consultation

Social mobility policy committee

To ensure inclusivity in the post-16 education system, the government must guarantee a clear progression route for the "other 50 per cent" of young people who are not on the academic track. The government should introduc...Read more...

Blog

LSE Politics and Policy:

Why the social care visa had to go

One of the changes to the UK work migration regime announced in this week's White Paper was that care workers could no longer be hired directly from abroad. To some this return to the pre-2021 system was an act of econom...Read more...

Blog

LSE Business Review:

NHS talking therapies bring long-term economic returns to England

Mental health treatment improves workers' employability and increases their earnings. Klaudia Rzepnicka, Emma Sharland, Marta Rossa, Ted Dolby, Ekaterina Oparina, Rob Saunders, Daniel Ayoubkhani and Vahe Nafilyan conduct...Read more...

CEP discussion paper

Dear brothers and sisters: Pope's speeches and the dynamics of conflict in Africa

Public speeches by leaders can serve as a cost-effective tool for fostering peace, yet their effectiveness remains uncertain, particularly in divided societies experiencing violent conflict. This paper examines the impac...Read more...

Government consultation

Planning and Infrastructure Bill

Written evidence submitted by Paul Cheshire to the planning and infrastructure bill committee...Read more...

Blog

LSE Politics and Policy:

AI for Good - impact through ethical technology

Artificial Intelligence is set to change our lives, but there are many doubts about whether this will be for the better. By looking at a case of non-surveillance application of AI used to help with crowd management, Tom ...Read more...

CEP occasional paper

The C-WELLBY: Towards a Universal Measure of Children's Wellbeing for Policy Analysis

There is a pressing need for a universal measure of children's wellbeing, parallel to the WELLBY, for use in cost-benefit analysis. Currently, there is no consensus on how to value the wellbeing of children, raising conc...Read more...