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Using wellbeing data to assess benefits for residents....Read more...
Christian Krekel
21 October 2025
Some argue that school is a means to an end, and time spent in lessons may be unpleasant, but it helps these children in the future. The question is 'to what end'. Are school years something which have to be tolerated i...Read more...
Sara MacLennan
13 October 2025
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...
David Frayman
10 July 2025
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...
Daniel Ayoubkhani, Ted Dolby, Vahé Nafilyan, Ekaterina Oparina, Marta Rossa, Klaudia Rzepnicka, Rob Saunders and Emma Sharland
20 June 2025
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...
Maria Cotofan, Sarah Cunningham, Jan-Emmanuel De Neve, Richard Layard and Ben Wealthy
18 June 2025
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...
Isaac Parkes
3 June 2025
In this year's issue, we focus on the impact of caring and sharing on people's happiness. Like 'mercy' in Shakespeare's Merchant of Venice, caring is "twice-blessed" - it blesses those who give and those who receive. In ...Read more...
Lara Aknin, Jan-Emmanuel De Neve, John Helliwell, Richard Layard, Jeffrey D. Sachs and Shun Wang
20 March 2025
How can we get the different sectors of society to collaborate to overcome the challenges we face? The answer has to be "Get them to address a common goal"....Read more...
Richard Layard
5 November 2024
Choosing policies that most improve wellbeing would radically change government priorities. David Frayman, Christian Krekel, Richard Layard, Sara MacLennan and Isaac Parkes explain the science behind the new approach....Read more...
David Frayman, Christian Krekel, Richard Layard, Sara MacLennan and Isaac Parkes
18 October 2024
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...
28 June 2024
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...
4 June 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...
Edited by Lara Aknin, Jan-Emmanuel De Neve, John Helliwell, Richard Layard, Jeffrey D. Sachs and Shun Wang
20 March 2024
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...
13 March 2024
How we spend our time directly impacts how satisfied we are with our lives, and understanding the activities that bolster our wellbeing - and those that don't - can help policymakers make better decisions when allocating...Read more...
21 November 2023
In Wellbeing: Science and Policy, Richard Layard and Jan-Emmanuel De Neve present an enquiry into human wellbeing: what factors create it, how can it be effectively measured and how can it be improved? The authors' rich ...Read more...
Jan-Emmanuel De Neve and Richard Layard
19 September 2023
Richard Layard talks to Sarah Cunningham about how wellbeing science has developed over the past half-century, and how he is calling on policymakers and business leaders to put wellbeing at the heart of decision-making....Read more...
28 June 2023
What produces a happy society and a happy life? In the first textbook on wellbeing, Richard Layard and Jan-Emmanuel De Neve explain how wellbeing can be measured, what causes it and how it can be improved. They conclude ...Read more...
20 June 2023
What produces a happy society and a happy life? Richard Layard and Jan-Emmanuel De Neve suggest that through the new science of wellbeing, we can now answer this question empirically. Explaining how wellbeing can be meas...Read more...
27 March 2023
It has been over ten years since the first World Happiness Report was published. And it is exactly ten years since the United Nations General Assembly adopted Resolution 66/281, proclaiming 20 March to be observed annual...Read more...
20 March 2023
The latest edition of the World Happiness Report offers new insights into wellbeing across the globe. The past year has brought a number of fresh challenges, but many people are still able to find happiness in their live...Read more...
Maria Cotofan
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Richard Layard and Jan-Emmanuel De Neve
6 March 2023
The CEP carries out policy-focused research on the causes of economic growth and effective ways to create a fair, inclusive and sustainable society. The Insights series highlights the contributions that CEP research has ...Read more...
21 February 2023
Improving Access to Psychological Therapy (IAPT) services are being renamed as NHS Talking Therapies for Anxiety and Depression, following a public consultation. Professor David M Clark and Dr Adrian Whittington reflect ...Read more...
David M. Clark and Adrian Whittington
16 January 2023
Fully appraising any policy requires us to capture all of its ripple effects and not simply the size of the splash when the pebble of intervention hits the water. It also requires that we weight the value of those effect...Read more...
Paul Dolan
30 August 2022
When policy-makers have multiple objectives, they still need an over-arching criterion which determines the importance of the different objectives. The most reasonable criterion is the wellbeing of the population. Fortun...Read more...
