Results

Journal article

Nature Climate Change:

The environmental impact of multinational firms in Africa

Whereas environmental conditions are improving in many developed countries, environmental degradation is still widespread. Multinational enterprises could play a central role in solving or fuelling these global environme...Read more...

Journal article

Journal of Public Economics:

Is it possible to raise national happiness?

We revisit the famous Easterlin paradox by considering that life evaluation scales refer to a changing context, hence they are regularly reinterpreted. We propose a simple model of rescaling based on both retrospective a...Read more...

Journal article

Scientific Reports:

Sharing meals is associated with greater wellbeing

Although social connections are important drivers of wellbeing, and sharing meals is a nearly universal practice, the relationship between sharing meals and wellbeing remains underexplored. In Study 1, using novel data f...Read more...

Blog

The We Society (podcast):

How happy is the world in 2026? with Jan-Emmanuel De Neve

Our guest, Professor Jan-Emmanuel De Neve shares with us the top findings from the recently released 2026 World Happiness Report. He is Professor of Economics and Behavioural Science at the University of Oxford and Dire...Read more...

External report

World Happiness Report 2026

In North America and Western Europe, young people are much less happy than 15 years ago. Over the same period, social media use has greatly increased. Many people blame social media for this fall in happiness, but does t...Read more...

CEP discussion paper

Sustaining international rules in a multipolar world

We study the sustainability of international trading rules in a multipolar world. A rules-based equilibrium is shaped by three forces. A static temptation to exploit market power undermines cooperation, while two dynamic...Read more...

Journal article

Nature Human Behaviour:

Why single-item measures of wellbeing are best

We argue that individual wellbeing is best captured by single self-reports of one's overall quality of life. This approach is direct, efficient, globally comparable and distinguishes wellbeing from what might explain it....Read more...

Journal article

The Journal of Economic Education:

Teaching happiness (economics) in your dismal-science courses

The authors of this article discuss ideas for incorporating the study of happiness and other measures of self-reported or subjective well-being (SWB) into undergraduate economics courses. They begin by motivating why eco...Read more...

CEP discussion paper

Does happiness spread within organizations? Evidence from a field experiment in Norway

We report the results from a large field experiment that tests if happiness spreads within an organizational setting, as predicted by the emotional contagion hypothesis. Although some studies have supported this hypothes...Read more...

CEP discussion paper

Equilibrium trade regimes: power- vs. rules-based

Members of the World Trade Organization are increasingly disregarding its rules, raising concerns about the future of the multilateral trading system. To analyze the sustainability of the rules-based trade regime, we dev...Read more...

CEP occasional paper

Structured wellbeing curriculum in schools

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...

Blog

Liberty Street Economics:

How Firms Spread Good Management

What is good management, and how is it transmitted across firms and plants? In a recent paper, we use survey and administrative data, coupled with a structural model of management, to explore these questions. We show tha...Read more...

Blog

LSE Inequalities:

Tariffs, automation and inequality: why US jobs won't return but developing countries will still lose

Headlines around Trump's sweeping tariffs have focused on trade wars, inflation and the geopolitical fallout. But a more profound shift is taking place, argues Viet Nguyen-Tien. Rather than restoring American jobs, these...Read more...

CEP discussion paper

Teaching happiness (economics) in your dismal-science courses

This paper discusses ideas for incorporating the study of happiness and other measures of self-reported or subjective well-being (SWB) into undergraduate economics courses. We begin by motivating why students of economic...Read more...

Blog

The Conversation:

Why sharing meals can make people happier - what evidence from 142 countries shows

The importance of sharing meals is recognised across cultures, from the Jewish Shabbat meal to the fast-breaking Iftar meals during Ramadan. The known link between food and social relationships is ancient. The English wo...Read more...

External report

World Happiness Report 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...

CEP discussion paper

Is it possible to raise national happiness?

We revisit the famous Easterlin paradox by considering that life evaluation scales refer to a changing context, hence they are regularly reinterpreted. We propose a simple model of rescaling based on both retrospective a...Read more...

Blog

Promarket:

Does Domestic Competition Help EU Firms Compete Abroad?

In a survey of nearly 400 European firms that export abroad, Elena Argentesi, Livia De Simone, Stephan Paetz, Vincenzo Scrutinio find that most firms believe that competition forces them to produce cheaper and higher qua...Read more...

Blog

The Rest is Money:

The economics of happiness (podcast)

Robert and Steph are joined by Lord Richard Layard, a 90 year old economist who has dedicated his life to researching and encouraging politicians to consider the happiness of their populations when taking decisions. Th...Read more...

Chapter

Happiness and spatial inequality: past, present, and future

in Encyclopedia of Happiness, Quality of Life and Subjective Wellbeing

Why are people happier in certain places as opposed to others? Understanding why people choose to live in a certain area, the elements they take into account when making this decision, and the value that they place on ea...Read more...

Chapter

World Happiness Report: origins, purpose, contents, impact and future

in Encyclopedia of Happiness, Quality of Life and Subjective Wellbeing

Read more...

Chapter

Money and happiness

in Encyclopedia of Happiness, Quality of Life and Subjective Wellbeing

Many people believe that earning more money would bring more happiness into their lives. However, despite massive improvements in material living conditions in most Western countries, average population happiness has sta...Read more...

Journal article

Encyclopaedia of Happiness, Quality of Life and Subjective Wellbeing:

Money and happiness

Many people believe that earning more money would bring more happiness into their lives. However, despite massive improvements in material living conditions in most Western countries, average population happiness has sta...Read more...

CEP discussion paper

Neighborhood effects: evidence from wartime destruction in London

We use the German bombing of London during the Second World War as an exogenous source of variation to provide evidence on neighborhood effects. We construct a newly-digitized dataset at the level of individual buildings...Read more...

External report

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...

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...

CentrePiece article

Scars of war

Deaths of soldiers in wartime naturally have a powerful impact on the communities from which they come. Research by Edward Pinchbeck, Felipe Carozzi and Luca Repetto reveals how losses in the first world war have reverbe...Read more...

CEP discussion paper

Scars of war: the legacy of WW1 deaths on civic capital and combat motivation

What drives soldiers to risk their life in combat? We show that the legacy of war creates lasting conditions that encourage younger generations to take greater risks when fighting for their country. Using individual-leve...Read more...

CentrePiece article

In brief... The wellbeing costs of inflation inequalities

Some people face sharper increases in the prices they pay than others - and since inflation makes everyone miserable, they also experience greater loss of happiness. Alberto Prati assesses the costs of such inflation ine...Read more...

Journal article

Research Policy:

Global value chains and domestic innovation

This paper explores how changes in both position and participation in Global Value Chain (GVC) networks affect firm innovation. The analysis combines matched patent-firm data for Japan with measures of GVC network centra...Read more...

External report

World Happiness Report 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...

Blog

Economics Observatory:

What is the role of government in creating a happier world?

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...

CentrePiece article

CEP Insights: Wellbeing

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...

Blog

Vox EU:

Tracking uncertainty in a rapidly changing global economic outlook

Tracking uncertainty at a high frequency is useful in the context of the multiple shocks that have hit the global economy over the past years and to disentangle the sources of uncertainty. This column presents a new mont...Read more...

Journal article

Psychological Science:

Feeling good is feeling better

Can people remember their past happiness? We analyzed data from four longitudinal surveys from the United States, France, the United Kingdom, and Germany spanning from the 1970s until the present, in which more than 60,0...Read more...

CentrePiece article

Lessons from ten years of the World Happiness Report

The World Happiness Report gives us an annual insight into global wellbeing. Maria Cotofan looks at what we have learned about the determinants of wellbeing in the past ten years ? and what challenges and opportunities l...Read more...

Journal article

Social Science and Medicine:

"Better the devil you know": are stated preferences over health and happiness determined by how healthy and happy people are?

Most people want to be both happy and healthy. But which matters most when there is a trade-off between them? This paper addresses this question by asking 4000 members of the UK and US public to make various choices betw...Read more...

Blog

Economics Observatory:

What can we learn from the latest World Happiness Report?

Now in its tenth year, Maria Cotofan explains how the World Happiness Report offers an insight into the progress that has been made - both in terms of understanding the determinants of global wellbeing and in recognising...Read more...

External report

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...

Journal article

Journal of Behavioral and Experimental Economics:

Faster, higher, stronger? and happier? Relative achievement and marginal rank effects

Most prior research on the relationship between relative attainment and subjective wellbeing focuses on relative income. The direction of this relationship may, however, be positive or negative. Defining the target compa...Read more...

CEP discussion paper

"Better the devil you know": are stated preferences over health and happiness determined by how healthy and happy people are?

Most people want to be both happy and healthy. But which matters most when there is a trade-off between them? This paper addresses this question by asking 4,000 members of the public in the UK and the US to make various ...Read more...

Journal article

Journal of Cross-Cultural Psychology:

Life satisfaction and the Human Development Index across the world

We use annual data on over 150 countries between 2005 and 2018 to look at the relationship between subjective well-being (both cognitive and affective) and the Human Development Index (HDI). The HDI appears to be more cl...Read more...

Journal article

Oxford Review of Economic Policy:

The World Management Survey at 18: lessons and the way forward

Understanding how differences in management 'best practices' affect organizational outcomes has been a focus of both theoretical and empirical work in the fields of management, sociology, economics, and public policy. Th...Read more...

Book

A Handbook for Wellbeing Policy-Making
History, Theory, Measurement, Implementation, and Examples

Around the world, governments are starting to directly measure the subjective wellbeing of their citizens and to use it for policy evaluation and appraisal. What would happen if a country were to move from using GDP to u...Read more...

External report

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 Business Review:

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...

Journal article

Journal of Economic Behavior and Organization:

Early-life correlates of later-life well-being: evidence from the Wisconsin Longitudinal Study

We here use data from the Wisconsin Longitudinal Study (WLS) to provide one of the first analyses of the distal (early-life) and proximal (later-life) correlates of older-life subjective well-being. Unusually, we have tw...Read more...

CEP occasional paper

Are happier people more compliant? Global evidence from three large-scale surveys during Covid-19 lockdowns

Around the world, governments have been asking their citizens to practice physical distancing and stay at home to contain the spread of Covid-19. Are happier people more willing to comply with these measures? Using three...Read more...

External report

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...

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...

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

Does employee happiness have an impact on productivity?

This article provides quasi-experimental evidence on the relationship between employee happiness and productivity in the field. We study the universe of call center sales workers at British Telecom (BT), one of the Unite...Read more...

Journal article

Journal of Public Economics:

Quantifying the intangible impact of the Olympics using subjective well-being data

Hosting the Olympic Games costs billions of taxpayer dollars. Following a quasi-experimental setting, this paper assesses the intangible impact of the London 2012 Olympics, using a novel panel of 26,000 residents in Lond...Read more...

CEP discussion paper

Quantifying the intangible impact of the Olympics using subjective well-being data

Hosting the Olympic Games costs billions of taxpayer dollars. Following a quasi-experimental setting, this paper assesses the intangible impact of the London 2012 Olympics, using a novel panel of 26,000 residents in Lond...Read more...

External report

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...

CEP discussion paper

The effect of the Brexit referendum result on subjective well-being

We study the effect of the Brexit referendum result on subjective well-being in the United Kingdom. Using a quasi-experimental design, we find that this outcome led to an overall decrease in subjective well-being in the ...Read more...

External report

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

Early-life correlates of later-life well-being: evidence from the Wisconsin longitudinal study

We here use data from the Wisconsin Longitudinal Study (WLS) to provide one of the first analyses of the distal (early-life) and proximal (later-life) correlates of older-life subjective well-being. Unusually, we have tw...Read more...

Journal article

Journal of Economic Psychology:

Top incomes and human well-being: evidence from the Gallup World Poll

The share of income held by the top 1 percent in many countries around the world has been rising persistently over the last 30 years. But we continue to know little about the relationship between the rising top income sh...Read more...

Journal article

Journal of Economic Behavior and Organization:

Would you choose to be happy? Tradeoffs between happiness and the other dimensions of life in a large population survey

A large literature documents the determinants of happiness. But is happiness all that people want from life; and if so, what type of happiness matters to them? Or are they willing to sacrifice happiness (however it is de...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...

Journal article

International Review of Economics:

Happiness, income and poverty

There is considerable evidence from a variety of sources to suggest that well-being is a function of relative income. These findings have been used to explain the Easterlin Paradox, whereby a rise in income for all does ...Read more...

External report

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...

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

The Review of Income and Wealth:

Economic growth evens out happiness: evidence from six surveys

In spite of the great U-turn that saw income inequality rise in Western countries in the 1980s, happiness inequality has fallen in countries that have experienced income growth (but not in those that did not). Modern gro...Read more...

Journal article

European Journal of Population:

Happy people have children: choice and self-selection into parenthood

There is mixed evidence in the existing literature on whether children are associated with greater subjective well-being, with the correlation depending on which countries and populations are considered. We here provide ...Read more...

CEP discussion paper

The host with the most? The effects of the Olympic Games on happiness

We show that hosting the Olympic Games in 2012 had a positive impact on the life satisfaction and happiness of Londoners during the Games, compared to residents of Paris and Berlin. Notwithstanding issues of causal infer...Read more...

CEP discussion paper

Without my medal on my mind: counterfactual thinking and other determinants of athlete emotions

How achievement makes people feel depends upon counterfactual thoughts about what could have been. One body of evidence for this comes from studies of observer ratings of Olympians' happiness, which suggests that categor...Read more...

External report

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...

CEP discussion paper

Special and differential treatment for developing countries

Special and Differential Treatment for Developing Countries (SDT) constitutes a central feature of the GATT/WTO system. Its formal goal is to foster export-led growth in developing countries. Its theoretical foundations ...Read more...

Journal article

Journal of Economic Behavior and Organization:

Can having internal locus of control insure against negative shocks? Psychological evidence from panel data

We investigate whether the intensity of emotional pain following a negative shock is different across the distribution of a person's locus of control - the extent to which individuals believe that their actions can influ...Read more...

CEP discussion paper

Top incomes and human well-being around the world

The share of income held by the top 1 percent in many countries around the world has been rising persistently over the last 30 years. But we continue to know little about how the rising top income shares affect human wel...Read more...

CEP discussion paper

Do people seek to maximize their subjective well-being?

In a new survey we ask respondents, after a standard Subjective Well-Being (SWB) question, if they can think of changes in their lives that would improve their SWB score. If the SWB score is just one argument among other...Read more...

Journal article

Journal of Behavioral and Experimental Economics:

Are happier people less judgmental of other people's selfish behaviors? Experimental survey evidence from trust and gift exchange games

What determines people's moral judgments of selfish behaviors? Here we study whether people's normative views in trust and gift exchange games, which underlie many situations of economic and social significance, are them...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...

CEP discussion paper

Would you choose to be happy? Tradeoffs between happiness and the other dimensions of life in a large population survey

A large literature documents the correlates and causes of subjective well-being, or happiness. But few studies have investigated whether people choose happiness. Is happiness all that people want from life, or are they w...Read more...

Journal article

Economic Development and Cultural Change:

Organization of disaster aid delivery: spending your donations

Extreme disasters catch the public eye, often resulting in massive infusions of aid that affect not just individual well-being but the fabric of societies. In developing countries, this typically involves foreign nongove...Read more...

Journal article

Journal of Happiness Studies:

Happy talk: mode of administration effects on subjective well-being

There is increasing interest in subjective well-being (SWB) both in academic and policy circles. As a result, considerable research efforts are now being directed at the validity and reliability of SWB measures. This stu...Read more...

External report

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

The World Bank Economic Review:

The political economy of trade policy: gone for good? Subsidies with export share requirements in China: 2002-13

This paper presents a simple model of subsidies with export share requirements (ESR) in a heterogeneous firm environment. A two-country general equilibrium version of the model with a single 100% ESR is calibrated using ...Read more...

CEP discussion paper

Economic growth evens-out happiness: evidence from six surveys

In spite of the great U-turn that saw income inequality rise in Western countries in the 1980s, happiness inequality has fallen in countries that have experienced income growth (but not in those that did not). Modern gro...Read more...

External report

Report on wellbeing and public policy

An independent commission chaired by Gus O'Donnell proposes a radical reform of public policy-making, targeted at wellbeing, or life satisfaction, not simply economic growth.Its report, Wellbeing and Policy, commissioned...Read more...

External report

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

Are happier people less judgmental of other people's selfish behaviors? Laboratory evidence from trust and gift exchange games

What determines people?s moral judgments of selfish behaviors? Here we study whether people?s normative views in trust and gift exchange games, which underlie many situations of economic and social significance, are them...Read more...

CentrePiece article

In brief... The long reach of childhood bullying

Does the fear of being bullied in childhood affect people's resilience to adverse life events they may face in adulthood? The author investigates whether the 'scarring' effects are particularly damaging to individuals wh...Read more...

CentrePiece article

Are you happy while you work?

Happiness surveys typically ask people to say how they feel about their life experiences in retrospect, but smartphone technology makes it possible to collect responses on wellbeing 'in the moment'. The authors use this ...Read more...

SERC/Urban and Spatial Programme Discussion Paper

Does Better Rail Access Improve Homeowners? Happiness?: Evidence Based on Micro Surveys in Beijing

Development of urban transport infrastructures is a key policy focus---particularly in countries like China which have experienced fast urbanisation over the past decade. While existing studies provide marginal values fo...Read more...

CEP discussion paper

Are You Happy While You Work?

Recent work in psychology and economics has investigated ways in which individuals experience their lives. This literature includes influences on individuals? momentary happiness. We contribute to this literature using a...Read more...

CEP discussion paper

Resilience to Economic Shocks and the Long Reach of Childhood Bullying

This paper investigates whether people?s ability to withstand and adapt to one of the most important economic shocks ? job loss ? is determined early on in childhood. Using nationally representative longitudinal data tha...Read more...

CEP discussion paper

The Transferable Scars: A Longitudinal Evidence of Psychological Impact of Past Parental Unemployment on Adolescents in the United Kingdom

Using a longitudinal data of British youths, this paper explores the consequences of past parental unemployment on the current happiness and self-esteem of the children. We find that a past unemployment spell of the fath...Read more...

CEP discussion paper

A Cautionary Note on Using Industry Affiliation to Predict Income

Many literatures investigate the causal impact of income on economic outcomes, for example in the context of intergenerational transmission or well-being and health. Some studies have proposed to use employer wage differ...Read more...

CEP occasional paper

Hooray for GDP!

Should raising the growth rate of GDP per capita be a policy goal of governments in general, and of the British government in particular? Many people would say no, for the following reasons: 1) GDP is hopelessly flawed a...Read more...

CEP discussion paper

Happy Talk: mode of administration effects on subjective well-being

Research on the measurement of subjective well-being (SWB) has escalated in recent years. This study contributes to the literature by examining how SWB reports differ by mode of survey administration. Using data from the...Read more...

External report

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...

CEP discussion paper

Genes, Economics and Happiness

A major finding from research into the sources of subjective well-being is that individuals exhibit a ?baseline? level of happiness. We explore the influence of genetic variation by employing a twin design and genetic as...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

The Provision of Relative Performance Feedback Information: An Experimental Analysis of Performance and Happiness

This paper studies the effect of providing relative performance feedback information on individuals? performance and affective response, under both piece-rate and flat-rate incentives. In a laboratory setup, agents perfo...Read more...

Journal article

Journal of Neuroscience, Psychology, and Economics:

Genes, economics, and happiness

We explore the influence of genetic variation on subjective well-being by employing a twin design and genetic association study. In a nationally representative twin sample, we first show that ~33% of the variation in lif...Read more...