PB441      Half Unit
Wellbeing for Policy

This information is for the 2025/26 session.

Course Convenor

Availability

This course introduces students to the main concepts and methods of wellbeing for policy-making, with a focus on applicability to policies across all sectors (government, business, and NGOs). It will enable students to conduct cutting-edge policy analysis using wellbeing data, to qualify them to take up analytical positions involving wellbeing and other social impacts data. To achieve this aim, the course is based on ten lectures covering: 1) wellbeing in theory; 2) evidence on the causes and consequences of wellbeing (including behavioural scientific phenomena uniquely captured by wellbeing); 3) data, measurement, and survey design; 4) wellbeing policy appraisal i: cost-benefit analysis; 5) wellbeing policy appraisal ii: cost-effectiveness analysis; 6) wellbeing policy evaluation; 7) social welfare; 8) wellbeing interventions; 9) embedding wellbeing into the policy-making process; 10) wellbeing as the ultimate goal?

15 hours of lectures and 15 hours of seminars in the Winter Term.

This course has a reading week in Week 6 of Winter Term.

Students will participate in a test run of the presentation that will be Summative Assignment 1, to be held in the WT.

Books

• Frijters, P., & C. Krekel (2021). A Handbook for Wellbeing Policy-Making. Oxford: Oxford University Press.

 Journal articles

• Benjamin, D. J., O. Heffetz, M. S. Kimball, & A. Rees-Jones (2014). What Do You Think Would Make You Happier? What Do You Think You Would Choose? American Economic Review, 102(5), 2083-2110.

• Clark, A. E., E. Diener, Y. Georgellis, & R. E. Lucas (2008). Lags And Leads in Life Satisfaction: a Test of the Baseline Hypothesis. Economic Journal, 118(529), F222-F243.

• Dolan, P., G. Kavetsos, C. Krekel, D. Mavridis, R. Metcalfe, C. Senik, S. Szymanski & N. R. Ziebarth (2019). Quantifying the intangible impact of the Olympics using subjective well-being data. Journal of Public Economics, 177, 104043.

• Dwyer, R. J., & E. W. Dunn (2022). Wealth redistribution promotes happiness. Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences, 119(46), e2211123119.

• Kahneman, D., P. P. Wakker, & R. Sarin (1997). Back to Bentham? Explorations of Experienced Utility. Quarterly Journal of Economics, 112(2), 375-406.

• Krekel, C., J.-E. De Neve, D. Fancourt, & R. Layard (2021). A local community course that raises wellbeing and pro-sociality: Evidence from a randomised controlled trial. Journal of Economic Behavior & Organization, 188, 322-336.

• Lindqvist, E., R. Östling, & D. Cesarini (2020). Long-Run Effects of Lottery Wealth on Psychological Well-Being. Review of Economic Studies, 87(6), 2703-2726.

• Odermatt, R., & A. Stutzer (2019). (Mis-)Predicted Subjective Well-Being Following Life Events. Journal of the European Economic Association, 17(1), 245-283.

• Oswald, A. J., E. Proto & D. Sgroi (2015). Happiness and Productivity. Journal of Labor Economics, 33(4), 789-822.

• Perez-Truglia, R. (2020). The Effects of Income Transparency on Well-Being: Evidence from a Natural Experiment. American Economic Review, 110(4), 1019-1054.

• Tay, L., & E. Diener (2011). Needs and Subjective Well-Being Around the World. Journal of Personality and Social Psychology, 101(2), 354-365.

• Ward, G. (2019). Happiness and Voting: Evidence from Four Decades of Elections in Europe. American Journal of Political Science, 64(3), 504-518.

 Policy papers

• HM Treasury (2021). Green Book Supplementary Guidance: Wellbeing. Wellbeing Guidance for Appraisal.

• HM Treasury (2021). Green Book Supplementary Guidance: Wellbeing. Monetisation of Life Satisfaction Effect Sizes.

 We encourage students to read Volume 4, Special Issue 2, “On Happiness Being the Goal of Government” in Behavioural Public Policy, July 2020.

Presentation (70%)

Essay (30%, 1000 words)

The assessment will be a field simulation. At the start of the WT, students will be randomly allocated to fictitious wellbeing policy consulting companies, and within these companies, randomly to different roles. These fictitious companies will then be given a real policy issue from a UK Government department or agency (previous years: Department for Transport; Department for Levelling Up, Housing and Communities; Ministry of Housing, Communities & Local Government), to work on together as a team during the WT. The assessment itself consists of two elements:

 Summative Assignment 1: a presentation on the given policy issue at the client (i.e. the UK Government department or agency that participates in the respective academic year), to be held in the WT (joint evaluation of students, by lecturer with input from client, 70% of grade).

Summative Assignment 2: an individual essay of 1,000 words reflecting on the presentation, to be submitted between the WT and the ST (individual evaluation, by lecturer, 30% of grade).