Wellbeing policy: what lessons from the Nobel laureate Daniel Kahneman?

Written by Richard Layard at LSE, a collaborator of Kahneman's for over two decades, this is less a biographical tribute than a personal account of how Kahneman's work reshaped policy thinking on wellbeing.

Layard explains the pension opt-in/opt-out experiment as a clean demonstration of defaults and framing, traces the evolution of wellbeing measurement from Diener onwards, and describes how the UK Treasury Green Book came to include subjective wellbeing as a policy criterion. The loss aversion experiment (Groups A and B, identical gambles framed differently) is explained clearly enough to use directly in class.

Directly relevant to the behavioural economics and government policy sections of both AQA and Edexcel. Accessible to all students, and the personal tone from someone who knew Kahneman gives it warmth.  Read here