Results

Blog

Centre for Inclusive Trade Policy:

Inclusion and wellbeing

The overarching good, according to economists, is utility, by which they mean wellbeing....Read more...

External publication

World Happiness Report 2022

This year marks the 10th anniversary of the World Happiness Report, which uses global survey data to report how people evaluate their own lives in more than 150 countries worldwide. The World Happiness Report 2022 reveal...Read more...

CEP Insights

Wellbeing

As societies become richer, they do not become happier. This paradox has led to a growing interest in the science of wellbeing, and how policymakers can evaluate policies in terms of what will improve wellbeing. Economis...Read more...

Blog

LSE Blogs:

Why wellbeing should be the goal of policy

Wherever there is a fixed budget constraint, money should be allocated to policies which give the greatest increase in wellbeing per pound of expenditure, argues Richard Layard. Even policy-makers unmoved by wellbeing as...Read more...

CentrePiece article

Beyond income inequality: non-monetary rewards to work

Discussion of income inequality focuses primarily on wages with limited consideration of the non-monetary rewards to work, not least the satisfaction that employees experience in doing their jobs. Andrew Clark, Maria Cot...Read more...

Blog

LSE Blogs:

Beyond income inequality: factoring in non-monetary rewards

While many researchers, policy makers, and interest groups are concerned with income inequality and its impact on society, much of the debate has focused on inequality in wages. In contrast, relatively little work has ad...Read more...

External publication

World Happiness Report 2021

The World Happiness Report 2021 focuses on the effects of COVID-19 and how people all over the world have fared. Our aim was two-fold, first to focus on the effects of COVID-19 on the structure and quality of people's li...Read more...

Blog

LSE Blogs:

World Happiness Report: living long and living well

The 2021 World Happiness Report comes as the Covid-19 pandemic continues to claim lives and lay waste to livelihoods around the world. Richard Layard and Ekaterina Oparina introduce the WELLBY Approach and look at how we...Read more...

Blog

LSE Blogs:

How a focus on wellbeing can help us make better policy decisions

Deaths, hospitalisations and cases have been the default metrics for policymakers during the pandemic. Paul Dolan (LSE) and a team of behavioural science experts propose a broader way of measuring policy outcomes that co...Read more...

CentrePiece article

Build back happier

In CEP’s first anniversary lecture marking 30 years since the Centre began, founder director Richard Layard outlined the science of wellbeing and its implications for public policy. As society tries to recover from the c...Read more...

CEP discussion paper

The true returns to the choice of occupation and education

Which occupations are best for wellbeing? There is a large literature on earnings differentials, but less attention has been paid to occupational differences in non-pecuniary rewards. However, information on both types o...Read more...

Blog

Bloomberg Stephanomics Podcasts:

The economic cost of Covid-19's mental health crisis

Richard Layard talks about why the coronavirus should make us rethink how we treat mental illness, how "building back better" should mean services rather than roads and railways, and why money really doesn't make us happ...Read more...

CentrePiece article

Happier lives: exploring what matters

Can we teach people to live happier and more pro-social lives? Are there cost-effective and scalable interventions? And could the effects be sustained over time? Christian Krekel and colleagues have evaluated the impact ...Read more...

Journal article

The BMJ:

Taking a wellbeing years approach to policy choice

Every day, policy makers must decide whether a policy is desirable. They do so by examining its impact on a range of outcomes. But the problem is how to aggregate these disparate outcomes. For example, as covid-19 cases ...Read more...

Blog

The BMJ Opinion:

Taking a wellbeing-years approach to policy choice

Every day, policy makers have to decide whether a policy is desirable. They do so by examining its impact on a whole range of outcomes. But the problem is how to aggregate these disparate outcomes against issues such as ...Read more...

Journal article

Behavioural Public Policy:

A happy choice: a response to the responses

We are very happy to see the engagement of so many eminent scholars in our field with our modest proposal for how to proceed with wellbeing policy formation in the UK. We are also heartened by the apparent endorsement of...Read more...

Blog

LSE Covid-19 blog:

How a job guarantee scheme can avoid the slide into long-term unemployment

Even if COVID-19 infection rates dwindle, it is now clear that the economy is unlikely to bounce back quickly. This raises the spectre of long-term unemployment. Richard Layard (LSE) explains how the government could dra...Read more...

External publication

World Happiness Report 2020

The World Happiness Report is a landmark survey of the state of global happiness that ranks 156 countries by how happy their citizens perceive themselves to be. The World Happiness Report 2020 for the first time ranks ci...Read more...

CEP occasional paper

When to release the lockdown: A wellbeing framework for analysing costs and benefits

In choosing when to end the lockdown, policy-makers have to balance the impact of the decision upon incomes, unemployment, mental health, public confidence and many other factors, as well as (of course) upon the number o...Read more...

CentrePiece article

Can we be happier?

If the goal for society is the greatest possible all-round happiness, how can that be achieved? Richard Layard and George Ward outline the evidence on what explains the huge variation in people's life satisfaction – and ...Read more...

Blog

LSE Business Review:

We can increase happiness through public policy - and in our jobs and private lives too

As research shows us what makes us happy, a world happiness movement is being born, write Richard Layard and George Ward....Read more...

Blog

LSE Business Review:

Covid-19: We shouldn't give priority to sustaining the GDP over the wellbeing of the people

If we handle the coronavirus crisis right, we can come out of it better than we went into it, says Richard Layard...Read more...

Book

Can We Be Happier? Evidence and Ethics

Most people now realise that economic growth, however desirable, will not solve all our problems. Instead, we need a philosophy and a science which encompasses a much fuller range of human need and experience.This book a...Read more...

CEP discussion paper

A local community course that raises mental wellbeing and pro-sociality

Although correlates of mental wellbeing have been extensively studied, relatively little is known about how to effectively raise mental wellbeing in local communities by means of intervention. We conduct a randomised con...Read more...

CEP discussion paper

A happy choice: wellbeing as the goal of government

In this article, we lay out the basic case for wellbeing as the goal of government. We briefly review the history of this idea, which goes back to the ancient Greeks and was the acknowledged ideal of the Enlightenment. W...Read more...

External publication

World Happiness Report 2019

The World Happiness Report is a landmark survey of the state of global happiness that ranks 156 countries by how happy their citizens perceive themselves to be. The World Happiness Report 2019 focuses on happiness and th...Read more...

Journal article

The Lancet:

Transparency about the outcomes of mental health services (IAPT approach): an analysis of public data

Background: Internationally, the clinical outcomes of routine mental health services are rarely recorded or reported; however, an exception is the English Improving Access to Psychological Therapies (IAPT) service, which...Read more...

External publication

World Happiness Report 2018

The World Happiness Report is a landmark survey of the state of global happiness. The World Happiness Report 2018, ranks 156 countries by their happiness levels, and 117 countries by the happiness of their immigrants. Th...Read more...

CEP discussion paper

The key determinants of happiness and misery

Understanding the key determinants of people’s life satisfaction will suggest policies for how best to reduce misery and promote wellbeing. This paper provides evidence from survey data on USA, Australia, Britain and Ind...Read more...

External publication

World Happiness Report 2017

The first World Happiness Report was published in April, 2012, in support of the UN High Level Meeting on happiness and well-being. Since then the world has come a long way. Increasingly, happiness is considered to be th...Read more...

CentrePiece article

Origins of happiness

Understanding the key determinants of people’s life satisfaction makes it possible to suggest policies for how best to reduce misery and promote wellbeing. A forthcoming book by Richard Layard and colleagues discusses ev...Read more...

Journal article

Kyklos:

Do More of Those in Misery Suffer from Poverty, Unemployment or Mental Illness?

Studies of deprivation usually ignore mental illness. This paper uses household panel data from the USA, Australia, Britain and Germany to broaden the analysis. We ask first how many of those in the lowest levels of life...Read more...

Book

Origins of Happiness

What makes people happy? Why should governments care about people's well-being? How would policy change if well-being were the main objective? The Origins of Happiness seeks to revolutionize how we think about human prio...Read more...

Journal article

IZA World of Labor:

The economics of mental health

In a typical country, one in five people suffers from a mental illness, the great majority from depression or crippling anxiety. Mental illness accounts for half of all illness up to age 45 in rich countries, making it t...Read more...

External publication

Measuring wellbeing and cost-effectiveness analysis

The measuring wellbeing series consists of discussion papers and how-to guides. This publication is a discussion paper. Why ignite discussion about measuring wellbeing? In our role as an independent collaborating centre...Read more...

External publication

World Happiness Report 2016

The World Happiness Report 2016 Update, which ranks 156 countries by their happiness levels, was released in Rome in advance of UN World Happiness Day, March 20th. The widespread interest in the World Happiness Reports, ...Read more...

Journal article

American Journal of Medical Research:

Why we should spend more on mental health

Mental health problems affect roughly 1 in 5 adults, and 1 in 10 children at any one time. In rich countries they cause roughly 40% of disability, absenteeism and underperformance at work, and cost some 7% of GDP. Under ...Read more...

CentrePiece article

Misery and mental health

Mental illness is a far bigger source of human misery than poverty or unemployment, according to research by Sarah Flèche and Richard Layard. They argue that we need to move beyond a purely materialistic conception of mi...Read more...

Journal article

Frontiers in Psychology:

Why more psychological therapy would cost nothing

To tackle the huge problem of mental illness, England has launched a large programme of psychological therapy, which is being watched worldwide. The authors argue that it costs nothing, due to savings on welfare benefits...Read more...

Blog

ESRC blog:

Making the world a happier place

Professor Lord Richard Layard directs the Wellbeing Programme at the ESRC Centre for Economic Performance, and has made major contributions on unemployment, inflation, inequality and post-Communist reform. Author of the ...Read more...

CentrePiece article

In brief... A Global Apollo Programme to tackle climate change

Leading thinkers across the worlds of science, public service and academia have launched a new global programme to combat climate change. Richard Layard outlines their proposal for big public investment in research that ...Read more...

CEP discussion paper

Do more of those in misery suffer from poverty, unemployment or mental illness?

Studies of deprivation usually ignore mental illness. This paper uses household panel data from the USA, Australia, Britain and Germany to broaden the analysis. We ask first how many of those in the lowest levels of life...Read more...

CEP election analysis

A New Priority for Mental Health

Mental illness (especially depression and chronic anxiety) is the biggest single cause of misery in advanced countries. But only one quarter of those who are ill receive treatment. Mental health is crucial for wellbeing ...Read more...

External publication

World Happiness Report 2015

Since it was first published in 2012, the World Happiness Report demonstrated that well-being and happiness are critical indicators of a nation's economic and social development, and should be a key aim of policy. This y...Read more...

Journal article

Feature Issue:

What predicts a successful life? A life-course model of well-being

Policy makers who care about well-being need a recursive model of how adult life‐satisfaction is predicted by childhood influences, acting both directly and (indirectly) through adult circumstances. We estimate such a ...Read more...

CentrePiece article

Policy for better mental health

Treating mental illness should be a top national priority, especially as proven psychological therapies effectively cost nothing. Richard Layard explains how CEP research has led to a new deal for mental health – but muc...Read more...

Book

Thrive
The power of evidence-based psychological therapies

A ground-breaking argument for better treatment of mental health from Richard Layard (author of Happiness) and David M. Clark. Britain has become a world leader in providing psychological therapies thanks to the w...Read more...

CEP discussion paper

What Predicts a Successful Life? A Life-Course Model of Well-Being

If policy-makers care about well-being, they need a recursive model of how adult life-satisfaction is predicted by childhood influences, acting both directly and (indirectly) through adult circumstances. We estimate such...Read more...

CEP discussion paper

Mental Illness and Unhappiness

This paper is a contribution to the second World Happiness Report. It makes five main points: 1. Mental health is the biggest single predictor of life-satisfaction. This is so in the UK, Germany and Australia even if men...Read more...

External publication

World Happiness Report 2013

The second World Happiness Report, released on Sept 9th 2013, further strengthens the case that well-being should be a critical component of how the world measures its economic and social development....Read more...

CEP discussion paper

Enhancing Recovery Rates: Lessons from Year One of the English Improving Access to Psychological Therapies Programme

Background: The English Improving Access to Psychological Therapies (IAPT) initiative aims to make evidence-based psychological therapies for depression and anxiety disorder more widely available in the National Health S...Read more...

CEP discussion paper

Mental Health: The New Frontier for Labour Economics

This lecture argues that mental health is a major factor of production. It is the biggest single influence on life satisfaction, with mental health eight years earlier a more powerful explanatory factor than current inco...Read more...

CentrePiece article

In brief: Mental illness and the NHS

Richard Layard and colleagues reveal the shocking scale of mental illness in Britain - and how little the NHS does about it....Read more...

CEP report

How mental illness loses out in the NHS a report by the Centre for Economic Performance's Mental Health Policy Group

Mental illness accounts for a massive share of the total burden of disease. Even when we include the burden of premature death mental illness accounts for 23% of the total burden of disease. Yet, despite the existence of...Read more...

External publication

World Happiness Report 2012

The 2012 World Happiness Report, published by the Earth Institute and co-edited by the institute’s director, Jeffrey Sachs, reflects a new worldwide demand for more attention to happiness and absence of misery as criteri...Read more...

CentrePiece article

Big ideas: wellbeing and public policy

Richard Layard outlines the development of CEP research on what makes people happy and how society might best be organised to promote happiness....Read more...

CEP discussion paper

A Model for the Delivery of Evidence-Based PSHE (Personal Wellbeing) in Secondary Schools

Personal Social Health and Economic (PSHE) education is a non-statutory school subject designed to facilitate the delivery of a number of key competencies relevant to health, safety and wellbeing. As well as contributing...Read more...

Book

Combatting Unemployment
IZA Prize in Labor Economics

Combatting Unemployment is a collection of key papers from seminal labour economists Richard Layard and Stephen J. Nickell. The authors received the IZA Prize in Labor Economics in 2008 for their path-breaking wor...Read more...

Book

Happiness
Lessons from a New Science

In this new edition of his landmark book, Richard Layard shows that there is a paradox at the heart of our lives. Most people want more income. Yet as societies become richer, they do not become happier. This is not...Read more...

CEP report

Measuring subjective wellbeing for public policy: recommendations on measures

The measurement of wellbeing is central to public policy. There are three uses for any measure: 1) monitoring progress; 2) informing policy design; and 3) policy appraisal. There has been increasing interest in the UK an...Read more...

CentrePiece article

In brief: The future of finance

A new CEP report says that the financial system has become far more complicated than it need to be - and dangerously unstable too...Read more...

Book

The Future of Finance
The LSE Report

This book presents a novel approach to the reform of the world’s financial system, starting with the basic question, what is a financial system for? It shows that the existing system has become far more complic...Read more...

CentrePiece article

In brief: Job guarantee: a new promise on long-term unemployment

Richard Layard and Paul Gregg call for a 'job guarantee' for jobseekers who have been out of work for 12 months or more...Read more...

Journal article

Behaviour Research and Therapy:

Improving access to psychological therapy: Initial evaluation of two UK demonstration sites

Recently the UK Government announced an unprecedented, large-scale initiative for Improving Access to Psychological Therapies (IAPT) for depression and anxiety disorders. Prior to this development, the Department of Heal...Read more...

CEP discussion paper

Does relative income matter? Are the critics right?

Do other peoples’ incomes reduce the happiness which people in advanced countries experience from any given income? And does this help to explain why in the U.S., Germany and some other advanced countries, happiness has ...Read more...

Book

A Good Childhood
Searching for Values in a Competitive Age

Every day the newspapers lament the problems facing our children - broken homes, pressures to eat and drink, the stress of exams. The same issues are discussed in every pub and at every dinner party. But is life real...Read more...

CEP discussion paper

Improving Access to Psychological Therapy: Initial Evaluation of the Two Demonstration Sites

The Government’s Improving Access to Psychological Therapy (IAPT) programme aims to implement NICE Guidance for people with depression and anxiety disorders. In the first phase of the programme, two demonstration sites w...Read more...

Journal article

Journal of Public Economics:

The marginal utility of income

In normative public economics it is crucial to know how fast the marginal utility of income declines as income increases. One needs this parameter for cost-benefit analysis, for optimal taxation and for the (Atkinson) me...Read more...

CEP discussion paper

Cost-Benefit Analysis of Psychological Therapy

At present six million people are suffering from clinical depression or anxiety disorders, but only a quarter of them are in treatment. NICE Guidelines prescribe the offer of evidence-based psychological therapy, but the...Read more...

CentrePiece article

Happiness and the Teaching of Values

A major purpose of schools must be to help develop good and happy people - especially at a time when growing numbers of children are suffering from emotional disturbance. Richard Layard argues that we need a new cadre of...Read more...

CEP discussion paper

The Marginal Utility of Income

In normative public economics it is crucial to know how fast the marginal utility of income declines as income increases. One needs this parameter for cost-benefit analysis, for optimal taxation and for the (Atkinson) me...Read more...

CentrePiece article

Tackling Depression and Anxiety Disorders

Most people with mental illness should be offered the choice of psychological therapy....Read more...

Journal article

Economic Journal:

Happiness and public policy: a challenge to the profession

The theory behind public economics needs radical reform. It fails to explain the recent history of human welfare and it ignores some of the key findings of modern psychology. Indeed these two failings are intimately link...Read more...

CentrePiece article

Mental Health: the Choice of Therapy for All

Richard Layard has spent much of his professional life tackling unemployment and inequality. But in his latest work, he argues that mental illness is now Britain's biggest social problem....Read more...

Book

Unemployment: Macroeconomic Performance and the Labour Market

This book aims to provide a basis for better unemployment policy: showing how the lessons learned from experience and theory can be applied to greatly reduce the waste and misery of high unemployment. The book survey...Read more...

CentrePiece article

Tackling Unemployment: Europe's Successes and Failures

Why has unemployment fallen in some European countries but not in others? To answer this question, Richard Layard, Stephen Nickell and Richard Jackman revisit their landmark analysis of macroeconomic performance and the ...Read more...

CEP occasional paper

Good Jobs and Bad Jobs

1. Human happiness is more affected by whether or not one has a job than by what kind of job it is. 2. Thus, when jobs are to hand, we should insist that unemployed people take them. This involves a much more pro-active ...Read more...

CentrePiece article

Full Employment Is Not Just a Dream

Europe's leaders have pledged themselves to ambitious targets for employment by 2010. Richard Layard and Stephen Nickell here present them with a manifesto for how it can be achieved....Read more...

CentrePiece article

Cause for Celebration

Richard Layard looks back on the achievements marked by the Queen’s Anniversary Prize award....Read more...

CEE/Education and skills discussion paper

Britain's Record on Skills

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CentrePiece article

The Status Quo Is Not An Option

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CEP occasional paper

Welfare to Work and the New Deal

'This paper addresses two questions: -Can Welfare-to-Work expand employment and -Has Britain's New Deal for young people actually done so, and have its benefits justified the cost? There is ample evidence that unemploym...Read more...

Book

Tackling Inequality

Richard Layard is one of Britain's foremost applied economists, whose work has had a profound impact on the policy debate in Britain and abroad. This book contains his most influential articles on the subject of une...Read more...

Book

Tackling Unemployment

Richard Layard is one of Britain's foremost applied economists whose work has had a profound impact on the policy debate in Britain and abroad. This book contains his most influential articles on unemployment. It is publ...Read more...

CentrePiece article

Getting People Back to Work

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CEP discussion paper

Labour Market Institutions and Economic Performance

Barely a day goes by without some expert telling us how the continental European economies are about to disintegrate unless their labour markets become more flexible. Basically, we are told, Europe has the wrong sort of ...Read more...

CEP discussion paper

European versus US Unemployment: Different Responses to Increased Demand for skill?

According to Paul Krugman, 'the European unemployment problem and the US inequality problem are two sides of the same coin'. In other words, both continents have had the same shift in demand towards skill; in the US rela...Read more...

CEP report

Investment Prospects In Russia

Contributors to this report on a recent CEP conferene include Sir Rodric Braithwaite, Sergei Vasiliev, Michael Emerson and Peter Boone. There is too much ill-informed and erroneous reporting of Russia and its companies....Read more...

CEP occasional paper

The Road Back to Full Employment

This is the paper of a lecture held in honour of Rudolf Meidner, attempting to answer the following questions: How far can recovery go before the labour market becomes so tight that inflationary pressures once more get o...Read more...

CEP discussion paper

Combatting Unemployment: Is Flexibility Enough?

Our conclusions are the most important influences on unemployment come from the following (i) The longer unemployment benefits are available the longer unemployment lasts. Similarly, higher levels of benefits generate hi...Read more...

CentrePiece article

How to Cut Unemployment

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CEP occasional paper

Lifelong Learning

'The main proposals in this paper have a highly focussed aim: to prevent the continuation in Britain of an increasingly depressed group of under-skilled workers. The main intention is to ensure that all 16-19 year olds a...Read more...

CEP occasional paper

The Current State and Future of Economic Reform

In this paper I give an impressionistic account of the situation in Russia in September 1994 and its implications for Western aid priorities. Considering the starting point, the progress of the reform has been remarkable...Read more...

CEP discussion paper

How Much Unemployment is Needed for Restructuring?: The Russian Experience

Open unemployment in Russia has been growing very slowly - by only about 1 percentage point a year. This is mainly because of a degree of wage flexibility unknown in the West. Comparing industries over a two year period ...Read more...

CEP occasional paper

Unemployment: The Way Forward for Europe

This paper was originally delivered as a TSB Forum lecture in Glasgow on Thursday 28 October, 1993. Professor Layard argues that unemployment must be reduced permanently below the intolerable levels of the 1980s and earl...Read more...

CEP discussion paper

Who Gains and Who Loses from Russian Credit Expansion

This paper traces (a) the impact of credit expansion on inflation and (b) the impact of inflation on the real liquidity of households and enterprises. From April 1992 to September 1993 households paid an inflation tax eq...Read more...

CEP discussion paper

Can Russia Control Inflation?

Russia has come near to hyper-inflation and pulled back from the brink. But the position is still delicate. In this paper we review the past history, and then what needs to be done and the difficulties of doing it. Russi...Read more...

CEP discussion paper

The Conditions of Life

The Western media often depict the average Russian as starving and destitute. This is of course absurd. But hardship has increased since the reform for a substantial portion of the population. Average living standards ha...Read more...

CEP occasional paper

Japanese Capitalism, Anglo-Saxon Capitalism; How Will the Darwinian Contest Turn Out?

Economic organization and economic behaviour in Japan - notably the employment relation, trading relations between business firms and the financing of industrial enterprise - are sufficiently different from prevailing pa...Read more...

CEP discussion paper

Unemployment in the OECD Countries

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CEP occasional paper

A Code of Conduct for Inter-State Trade

This paper was prepared for a conference of economic representatives of the states of the former Soviet Union. The paper argues the case for a code of conduct for inter-state trade and proposes such a code. The paper als...Read more...

CEP discussion paper

How to Privatise

Three main criteria should govern a privatisation plan: speed, fairness, and efficient control. From this view we derive our optimum scheme, though we recognise that in most countries it needs modifying to existing circu...Read more...

CEP discussion paper

Understanding Unemployment

This lecture provides a general framework for analysing unemployment. For inflation to be stable, there must be sufficient unemployment to prevent 'target real wages' exceeding 'feasible real wages'. Target real wage...Read more...

CEP discussion paper

Economic Change in Poland

Poland has tackled its economic problems with courage and, thus far, success. Hyperinflation has ceased, the well-chosen exchange rate has held, and wage behaviour has been responsible. A major recession is under way, an...Read more...

CEP discussion paper

Wage Bargaining and Incomes Policy: Possible lessons for Eastern Europe

In Eastern Europe (as in Western) wages will be mainly set by collective bargaining. The bargains are likely to be at a level of the firm. Cross-country evidence suggests that where there is a high coverage of collective...Read more...

CEP discussion paper

Mismatch: A Framework for Thought

The rise in European unemployment is often blamed on increased mismatch between labour supply and demand- either by age, skill or region. To investigate this, we first develop models to explain differences in unemploymen...Read more...