Richard Layard
Programme Co-Director, Center for Economic Performance, London School of Economics (UK)
Lord Layard is a labour economist who has worked for most of his life on how to reduce unemployment and inequality. He was one of the first economists to work on happiness, and his main current interest is how better mental health could improve our social and economic life. He is founder-director of LSE’s Centre for Economic Performance, and is co-director of the Centre’s programme on Community Wellbeing. In 2005 he wrote Happiness: Lessons from a New Science, which was published in 20 languages. He continues to find significant effects of relative income on happiness and to emphasise the importance of non-income variables on aggregate happiness. And in 2018, he co-authored a book called The Origins of Happiness: The science of wellbeing over the life course. His latest book, Can we be happier? was published in 2020. His work with distinguished psychologist David M. Clark, has led within the English National Health Service to the creation of a major programme of Improving Access to Psychological Therapies (IAPT) which is now treating nearly half a million people a year, of whom a half recover during treatment.