Wellbeing

CEP occasional paper

A wellbeing cost-benefit analysis of raising the state pension age

Governments of developed countries are facing growing pressures from the fiscal demands of an ageing population. To cope with this, they have tried to get individuals to work longer, primarily by raising the ages at whic...Read more...

CEP occasional paper

The Lower Thames crossing

Being on the move can spiral our mood up or down. There is well-known evidence that walking and cycling can directly improve our mental health as well as our physical health; many of us have experienced feelings of freed...Read more...

CEP occasional paper

The apprenticeship guarantee

The UK has a poor record of providing opportunities to learn skills for the around half of young people that do not attend university. Over a third of 18-year-olds in England are not undertaking any education or training...Read more...

CEP occasional paper

Mental health support teams in schools: Evidence and assumptions

In this paper we examine the cost-effectiveness of providing NICE recommended psychological therapy to young people. For each type of mental health problem we show: (i) the assumptions used to derive the impact of treati...Read more...

CEP occasional paper

Mental health and employment

In this report we evaluate the benefits and costs of providing NICE recommended treatment for addiction or severe mental health problems over a two-year time horizon for one individual. We separately investigate addictio...Read more...

CEP report

Value for money: How to improve wellbeing and reduce misery

The government spends billions on our behalf. How do we want this money to be spent? This report reviews a range of policies and asks the fundamental question which should be asked of every policy: Does it deliver value ...Read more...

CEP election analysis

Wellbeing

Wellbeing should be the overarching aim of government. Assessing policies by showing the wellbeing benefit relative to cost would mean mental health becoming a top priority for policy development....Read more...

Journal article

Humanities and Social Sciences Communications:

The WELLBY: a new measure of social value and progress

We introduce the WELLBY, a new measure of social value and progress, which can contribute to the assessment of progress towards the wellbeing of the economy and steer towards activities with the most wellbeing per financ...Read more...

Blog

LSE Business Review:

An "army of people" investigating how to make work and life more enjoyable

Wellbeing science can help revolutionise government, work, school and life. Schools shouldn't train people only for work, and work should be enjoyable. People are now studying how to make this happen, because the well-be...Read more...

Blog

LSE British Politics and Policy:

Higher workload for police officers correlates with victims withdrawing statements

In the UK, partners or family members are responsible for nearly half of all female homicides. But there is an increasing rate of statement withdrawal from victims in high-risk domestic abuse cases. Tom Kirchmaier and Ek...Read more...

CEP discussion paper

Global warming cools voters down: How climate concerns affect policy preferences

This study examines how regional temperature variations across OECD countries influence political behavior and support for offset policies. Our analysis reveals that exposure to higher temperatures correlates with politi...Read more...

External publication

World Happiness Report 2024

This issue of the World Happiness Report focuses on the happiness of people at different stages of life. In the seven ages of man in Shakespeare's As You Like It, the later stages of life are portrayed as deeply depressi...Read more...

Blog

The We Society (podcast):

Should governments care about wellbeing?

Professor Lord Richard Layard is one of the first economists to look at happiness as a metric that Governments worldwide should strive to improve in their population. He was the founder-director of LSE's Centre for Econ...Read more...

Journal article

Management Science:

Does Employee Happiness Have an Impact on Productivity?

This paper provides evidence from a natural experiment on the relationship between positive affect and productivity. We link highly detailed administrative data on the behaviors and performance of all telesales workers a...Read more...

Journal article

LSE Public Policy Review:

Wage Controversies: Real Wage Stagnation, Inequality and Labour Market Institutions

Weak real wage growth, low wage work and higher wage inequality than the past are features of contemporary labour markets the world over. Longstanding wage controversies in economics are of relevance to them. This paper ...Read more...

CEP discussion paper

Talking therapy: Impacts of a nationwide mental health service in England

Common mental health problems impose significant costs on individuals and societies, yet healthcare systems often overlook them. We provide the first causal evidence on the effectiveness of a pioneering, nationwide menta...Read more...

Journal article

Economica:

Do wages underestimate the inequality in workers' rewards? The joint distribution of job quality and wages across occupations

Information on both wages and job quality is needed in order to understand the occupational dispersion of wellbeing. We analyse subjective wellbeing in a large UK sample to construct a measure of ‘overall reward’, the su...Read more...

Blog

Vox EU:

Sleeping our way to being productive

Sleep is key to our physical and mental health. It also affects people's employment and productivity. Joan Costa-i-Font, Sarah Fleche and Ricardo Pagan explore how the amount of weekly sleep influences employment, produc...Read more...

Blog

LSE Business Review:

Generational diversity is on the rise, and those embracing it are gaining a competitive edge

Major firms are experiencing a widening gap between their youngest and oldest employees. Daniel Jolles and Grace Lordan write that frictions which undermine the potential productivity benefits of generational diversity a...Read more...

CEP Insights

Insights: condensed

The Insights series is an introduction to the work of the Centre for Economic Performance (CEP). Each Insight highlights the contribution of CEP researchers to both academic understanding and policymaking in one area of ...Read more...

Journal article

Journal of Population Economics:

Teleworking and life satisfaction during COVID-19: the importance of family structure

We carry out a difference-in-differences analysis of a real-time survey conducted as part of the German Socio-Economic Panel (SOEP) survey and show that teleworking had a negative average effect on life satisfaction over...Read more...

Journal article

Journal of Public Economics:

Football, Alcohol, and Domestic Abuse

We study the role of alcohol and emotions in explaining the dynamics in domestic abuse following major football games. We match confidential and uniquely detailed individual call data from Greater Manchester with the tim...Read more...

Blog

LSE Business Review:

Why women say hybrid working enhances productivity, while men don't

There is a complex interplay between gender, remote work and productivity. Nikita, Anna Lane, Grace Lordan and Paul Middleton conducted a survey of more than 1000 employees in financial and professional services in the U...Read more...

Blog

LSE British Politics and Policy:

Why household income doesn't tell the full story on individual wellbeing

The literature on inequality often focuses on household income, but this measure has several limitations for assessing individual wellbeing. Tim Obermeier develops a new collective household model which simultaneously ac...Read more...

Blog

LSE Business Review:

The three biggest workplace anxieties of 2023

What can leaders do to calm workplace anxieties and get the best out of their teams in 2024? Jazzy Jasiulek, Daniel Jolles, Nikita, and Grace Lordan asked over 1,400 professionals about their top anxieties and share how ...Read more...