Richard Layard was founder-director of the LSE Centre for Economic Performance, a large research centre covering most areas of economic policy. Since 2000 he has been a member of the House of Lords.
He has written widely on unemployment, inflation, education, inequality and post-Communist reform. He was an early advocate of the welfare-to-work approach to unemployment, and co-authored the influential book Unemployment: Macroeconomic Performance and the Labour Market (1991).
From 1997-2001 he helped implement these policies as a consultant to the Labour government. He was also involved in educational policy development for the non-graduate workforce.
Richard Layard always thought that the ultimate aim of public policy is to make people happier. In recent years he has been actively involved in the new science of happiness, and in 2005 published Happiness: Lessons from a New Science.
Mental illness is probably the single greatest threat to a happy life, and for this reason Richard Layard is currently leading a campaign to provide within the NHS evidence-based psychological therapy for people with clinical depression and chronic anxiety disorder. The Depression Report, published in July 2006, is the manifesto for this campaign.
Finally, Richard Layard is also active in other happiness promoting policies, such as the emotional aspects of children's education, and initiatives by local authorities to monitor and improve the happiness of the population in their area.
He founded the Employment Institute in 1985 to press for action to prevent long-term unemployment and was its Chairman from 1987-92. After Labour came to power, he was from 1997-2001 a government consultant on policies towards unemployment (including the New Deal) and towards skills.
He was Chairman of the European Commission's Macroeconomic Policy Group in the 1980s and then co-Chairman of the World Economy Group set up by WIDER. From 1991-97 he was an economic adviser to the Russian government's economic staff.
He has been on the staff of LSE since 1964. Before that he taught in a comprehensive school and was the Senior Research Officer for the Robbins Committee on Higher Education.