Wellbeing
The Wellbeing research group is devoted to understanding the causes of wellbeing and its influence on individuals and communities. One key focus is on improving mental health.
CEP research on wellbeing began in 2003 when Richard Layard gave his public lectures on Happiness: Has social science a clue? His book Happiness then followed which explored the paradox that as societies get richer, they often do not become happier. His 2020 book Can We Be Happier? sets out the evidence for why and how we can create a happier society.
Research from the programme has looked into what is important for wellbeing and the influence on wellbeing of working life, education and physical and mental health, by studying wellbeing over the course of people's lives. CEP wellbeing researchers regularly contribute to the World Happiness Reports and aim to make personal happiness and wellbeing a goal of public policy.
The research provided evidence of the overwhelming importance of good mental health to individuals and society. CEP's Mental Health Policy Group published two reports (see The Depression Report: A New Deal for Depression and Anxiety Disorders and How Mental Illness Loses out in the NHS) which helped bring about the Improving Access to Psychological Therapies (IAPT) programme. In its first four years, more than 1 million people had used the new services and recovery rates were in excess of 45 per cent.
The programme also produced a major analysis of all the main factors affecting people's wellbeing over their lives in The Origins of Happiness. This was aimed at policy-makers to make it easier for them to pursue wellbeing as a policy goal. The programme has built on this work, most recently analysing current and future UK policies and asking: Do they deliver value for money? and What benefit does it deliver to people relative to its net cost to the government? The results were published in the 2024 report Value for Money: How to improve wellbeing and reduce misery. In each case the benefits are measured in terms of the monetary equivalent of the impact of the policy in improving wellbeing. The report argued that this benefit/cost ratio is the key single number the government should be looking at when it makes its spending decisions.
Featured Work
Wellbeing publications
Andrew E. Clark, Richard Layard and Ekaterina Oparina
25 June 2025
Daniel Ayoubkhani, Ted Dolby, Vahé Nafilyan, Ekaterina Oparina, Marta Rossa, Klaudia Rzepnicka, Rob Saunders and Emma Sharland
20 June 2025
Maria Cotofan, Sarah Cunningham, Jan-Emmanuel De Neve, Richard Layard and Ben Wealthy
18 June 2025
Jan Goebel, Christian Krekel and Katrin Rehdanz
2 June 2025
Daniel Ayoubkhani, Ted Dolby, Vahe Nifilyan, Ekaterina Oparina, Marta Rossa, Klaudia Rzepnicka, Rob Saunders and Emma Sharland
8 May 2025
Kristen Cooper, Ori Heffetz, John Ifcher, Ekaterina Oparina and Stephen Wu
7 April 2025
Lara Aknin, Jan-Emmanuel De Neve, John Helliwell, Richard Layard, Jeffrey D. Sachs and Shun Wang
20 March 2025
Paul Frijters and Christian Krekel
20 February 2025
Paul Dolan, Richard Layard, Gillian Tett and Helen Ward
20 February 2025
Emma Sharland, Marta Rossa, Ted Dolby, Ekaterina Oparina, Rob Saunders, Daniel Ayoubkhani, Vahe Nafilyan and Klaudia Rzepnicka
28 January 2025
Alberto Prati and Claudia Senik
20 January 2025
Andrew E. Clark, Conchita D'Ambrosio, Jan-Emmanuel De Neve, Niccolo Gentile, Caspar Kaiser, Ekaterina Oparina and Alexandre Tkatchenko
10 January 2025
Alison Boler, Paul Dolan, Christian Krekel, Helen Lee, Claire Marshall, Ganga Shreedhar and Allison Smith
25 November 2024
Ekaterina Oparina, Andrew E. Clark and Richard Layard
6 November 2024
David Frayman, Christian Krekel, Richard Layard, Sara MacLennan and Isaac Parkes
18 October 2024
Richard Layard
30 September 2024