Christopher Pissarides shares a body of research that has blended psychology with economics.

My must-read paper is actually a book: Wellbeing: Science and Policy by Richard Layard and Jan-Emmanuel De Neve. In fact, my must-read would be the whole body of work that Richard and his co-authors have been researching and publishing over the last 20 years - which are now summarised in this book.

Economists have traditionally approached questions around labour markets in terms of income for hours worked. But this research shows that people care a lot about wellbeing, not only about income. Richard's work, along with the broader wellbeing programme at CEP, has persuaded me that wellbeing is something that economists should take more seriously and should integrate into their models.

I've always worked on labour markets and wages. The emphasis that economists had been giving, and the emphasis that I was giving to my work originally, was that workers choose a particular job because it pays well. But in fact, people won't necessarily go for the job with the best pay. They might choose a job with lower pay if it were better for their wellbeing.

Richard's argument, which should appeal to economists, is that this information about the importance of wellbeing is not just nice words. He thought: what can I do with this as an economist? He points out that there is hard statistical work to be done.

It has transformed my research on the future of work. But there wasn't an "apple-falling-from-the-tree" moment. In the beginning I was sceptical, thinking it was more for psychologists than economists.

I'd talk to Richard, we'd have informal lunches - a sandwich in his office - and he'd tell me how important it was. Then he'd show me the surveys that they were doing and how they were looking at what workers were saying: that they like what they call "good jobs" - roles with more flexibility, where there is better communication with line managers and colleagues, and a nicer work environment. And they talk about these other features of work that keep them happy at work before they mention income.

Little by little over the years, I saw the statistical work that the wellbeing programme was doing, especially Jan-Emmanuel's papers which are summarised in the book, and I became convinced that economists can analyse wellbeing using the standard techniques. Now I'm completely persuaded that when studying employment issues, productivity and work, we must always consider the wellbeing aspects of work.

When I was awarded a three-year grant by the Nuffield Foundation to study the future of work, we titled it The Future of Work and Wellbeing - and that was mainly due to Richard's influence.

In that project, we interviewed 5,000 workers and asked them about various features of work. That helped us to define good work, recommend the features that large numbers of workers say they like, and describe the features that they don't like.

I now emphasise the wellbeing aspects of work even more than the income aspects. It's important to people that when they leave work and go home, they feel satisfied that they have done a good job, as well as earned some money. That increases people's life satisfaction, it makes them more productive and more motivated. And when new technologies come along, as is now the case with artificial intelligence, it is those workers who are more motivated to learn new technologies and apply them at work.

I see wellbeing everywhere now. In August, I was at the Lindau Nobel laureate meeting. This year, 22 Nobel prize-winners were there (including 18 in economics) and about 300 young people. And many - both laureates and graduate students - were asking me about wellbeing at work, about what is a good job?

In earlier work, we were just talking about jobs - and now we're talking about good jobs. That is a real transformation.

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21 October 2025     Paper Number CEPCP721

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This CentrePiece article is published under the centre's Labour programme.