Layard, Richard 1934–

views updated

Layard, Richard 1934–

(P.R.G. Layard, P. Richard G. Layard, Peter Richard Grenville Layard)

PERSONAL: Born March 15, 1934, in Welwyn Garden City, England; son of John (a psychologist) and Doris (a psychologist) Layard. Education: Cambridge University, B.A. (with first class honors), 1957; London School of Economics and Political Science, London, M.Sc. (with distinction), 1967. Politics: "Social and liberal democrat." Religion: Church of England.

ADDRESSES: Home—London, England. Agent—Caroline Dawnay, PFD, Drury House, 34-43 Russell St., London WC2B 5HA, England. E-mail—[email protected].

CAREER: Schoolteacher in London, England, 1959–61; Robbins Committee on Higher Education, London, senior research officer, 1961–64; University of London, London School of Economics, London, deputy director of Higher Education Research Unit, 1964–74, lecturer, 1968–75, reader, 1975–80, professor of economics, beginning 1980, head of Centre for Labour Economics, beginning 1974, Employment Institute founder, 1985, chair, 1987–92. Member of the House of Lords, 2000–. Chairman of the European Commission's Macroeconomic Policy Group, 1980s; cochairman of the World Economy Group; economic advisor to the Russian government, 1991–97; and consultant to the British government, 1997–2001.

MEMBER: Econometric Society (fellow), British Academy (fellow).

AWARDS, HONORS: Honorary doctorate in Social Sciences, Brunel University.

WRITINGS:

EDITOR

(With Stephen Glaister) Cost-Benefit Analysis: Selected Readings, Penguin (Harmondsworth, England), 1972, Penguin Education (Baltimore, MD), 1974, Cambridge University Press (New York, NY), 1994.

(With Christine Greenhalgh and Andrew Oswald) The Causes of Unemployment, Clarendon University Press (New York, NY), 1983.

(With others) Europe: The Case for Unsustainable Growth: Report of the CEPS Macroeconomic Policy Group, Directorate-General for Economic and Financial Affairs, Commission of the European Communities (Brussels, Belgium), 1984.

(With Olivier Blanchard and Rudiger Dornbusch) Restoring Europe's Prosperity: Macroeconomic Papers from the Centre for European Studies, MIT Press (Cambridge, MA), 1986.

(With Orley Ashenfelter) Handbook of Labor Economics (Volume 5, "Handbooks in Economics" series), North-Holland (New York, NY), 1987.

(With Charles R. Bean and Stephen Nickell) The Rise in Unemployment, Basil Blackwell (New York, NY), 1987.

(With Rudiger Dornbusch) The Performance of the British Economy, Oxford University Press, 1987.

(With Lars Calmfors) The Fight against Unemployment: Macroeconomic Analysis from the Center for European Policy Studies, MIT Press (Cambridge, MA), 1987.

(With Rudiger Dornbusch and Wilhelm Nolling) Postwar Economic Reconstruction and Lessons for the East Today, MIT Press (Cambridge, MA), 1993.

(With Anders Aslund) Changing the Economic System in Russia, St. Martin's Press (New York, NY), 1993.

(With Ken Mayhew and Geoffrey Owen) Britain's Training Deficit: The Centre for Economic Performance Report, Avebury (Brookfield, VT), 1994.

(With Peter Boone and Stanislaw Gomulka) Emerging from Communism: Lessons from Russia, China, and Eastern Europe, MIT Press (Cambridge, MA), 1998.

(With Richard N. Cooper) What the Future Holds: Insights from Social Science, MIT Press (Cambridge, MA), 2002.

LONDON SCHOOL OF ECONOMICS "DISCUSSION PAPERS" SERIES

The Social Rate of Return in Optimal Educational Growth (number 23), Centre for Labour Economics, London School of Economics (London, England), 1976.

On the Use of Distributional Weights in Social Cost-Benefit Analysis (number 39), Centre for Labour Economics, London School of Economics (London, England), 1978.

The Causes of Poverty (number 42), Centre for Labour Economics, London School of Economics (London, England), 1978.

Human Satisfactions and Public Policy (number 34), Centre for Labour Economics, London School of Economics (London, England), 1979.

Education versus Cash Redistribution: The Lifetime Context (number 35), Centre for Labour Economics, London School of Economics (London, England), 1979.

(With Orley C. Ashenfelter) The Effects of Incomes Policy upon Differentials (number 44), Centre for Labour Economics, London School of Economics (London, England), 1979.

(With Richard Jackman) The Efficiency Case for Long-Run Labour Market Policies (number 53), Centre for Labour Economics, London School of Economics (London, England), 1979.

Measuring the Duration of Unemployment: A Note (number 58), Centre for Labour Economics, London School of Economics (London, England), 1979.

Have Job Centres Increased Long-Term Unemployment? (number 62), Centre for Labour Economics, London School of Economics (London, England), 1979.

(With T. Barker) Overseas Demand for Places at L.S.E. (number 66), Centre for Labour Economics, London School of Economics (London, England), 1979.

(With George E. Johnson) Efficient Public Employment with Labour Market Distortions: Paper Presented to the International Institute of Public Finance, Congress on "Public Finance and Public Employment" (number 74), Centre for Labour Economics, London School of Economics (London, England), 1980.

(With Heather Joshi and Susan Owen) Female Labour Supply in Post-War Britain: A Cohort Approach (number 79), Centre for Labour Economics, London School of Economics (London, England), 1981.

Unemployment in Britain: Causes and Cures (number 87), Centre for Labour Economics, London School of Economics (London, England), 1981.

(With David Grubb and Richard Jackman) Cause of the Current Stagflation (number 96), Centre for Labour Economics, London School of Economics (London, England), 1982.

(With Richard Jackman) Trade Unions, the NAIRU and a Wage-Inflation Tax (number 100), Centre for Labour Economics, London School of Economics (London, England), 1982.

(With E. Petoussis) Overseas Students's Fees and the Demand for Education (number 108), Centre for Labour Economics, London School of Economics (London, England), 1982.

(With Alan Marin and Antoni Zabalza) Trends in Civil Service Pay Relative to the Private Sector (number 121), Centre for Labour Economics, London School of Economics (London, England), 1982.

(With David Grubb and Richard Jackman) Wage Rigidity and Unemployment in OECD Countries (number 135), Centre for Labour Economics, London School of Economics (London, England), 1982.

(With Heather Joshi and Susan Owen) Why Are More Women Working in Britain? (number 162), Centre for Labour Economics, London School of Economics (London, England), 1983.

(With Richard Jackman and Christopher A. Pissarides) On Vacancies (number 165), Centre for Labour Economics, London School of Economics (London, England), 1983.

(With J.S.V. Symons) Neo-Classical Demand for Labour Functions for Six Major Economies (number 166), Centre for Labour Economics, London School of Economics (London, England), 1983.

(With Stephen Nickell) Unemployment, Real Wages and Aggregate Demand in Europe, Japan and the U.S. (number 214), Centre for Labour Economics, London School of Economics (London, England), 1985.

OTHER

(With Tyrell Burgess and Pitambar Pant) Manpower and Educational Development in India, 1961–86, Oliver & Boyd (London, England), 1968, University of Toronto Press (Toronto, Ontario, Canada), 1968.

(With Mark Blaug and Maureen Woodhall) The Causes of Graduate Unemployment in India, Allen Lane (London, England), 1969.

(With John King and Claus Moser) The Impact of Robbins: Expansion in Higher Education, Penguin (Harmondsworth, England), 1969.

(With R.D. Rees) The Determinants of UK Imports, H.M.S.O. (London, England), 1971.

(With J.D. Sargan, Margaret Ager, and D. Jones) Qualified Manpower and Economic Performance: An Inter-Plant Study in the Electrical Engineering Industry, Allen Lane (London, England), 1971.

(With D. Piachaud and M. Stewart) The Causes of Poverty, H.M.S.O. (London, England), 1978.

(With A.A. Walters) Microeconomic Theory, McGraw-Hill (New York, NY), 1978.

More Jobs, Less Inflation: The Case for a Counterinflation Tax, Grant McIntyre (London, England), 1982.

(With Andrew Sentance) How to Beat Unemployment, Oxford University Press (New York, NY), 1986.

(With Stephen Nickell) An Incomes Policy to Help the Unemployed, Employment Institute (London, England), 1986.

(With Orley Ashenfelter) Handbook of Labor Economics, North-Holland (New York, NY), 1987.

(With Andrew Clark) UK Unemployment, Heinemann (Oxford, England), 1989, 3rd edition, 1997.

(With Stephen Nickell and Richard Jackman) Unemployment: Macroeconomic Performance and the Labour Market, Oxford University Press (New York, NY), 1991, revised edition published as The Unemployment Crisis, 1994, published under original title, Oxford University Press (New York, NY), 2005.

(With John Philpott) Stopping Unemployment, Employment Institute (London, England), 1991.

(With others) East-West Migration: The Alternatives, MIT Press (Cambridge, MA), 1992.

(With John Parker) The Coming Russian Boom: A Guide to New Markets and Politics, Free Press (New York, NY), 1996.

What Labour Can Do, Warner (London, England), 1997.

Tackling Inequality, Macmillan (London, England), 1998, St. Martin's Press (New York, NY), 1999.

Tackling Unemployment, St. Martin's Press (New York, NY), 1999.

Happiness: Lessons from a New Science, Penguin Press (New York, NY), 2005.

The Depression Report, 2006.

Contributor to economic journals; some papers available online.

SIDELIGHTS: British economist Richard Layard has enjoyed a long career with the London School of Economics, where he founded the Employment Institute. He became a member of the House of Lords beginning in 2000, and served as a consultant to Prime Minister Tony Blair and the Labour government from the mid 1990s until 2001. He is the author or editor of a great many volumes and papers on employment and education policy, as well as areas that include inequality and post-Communist reform.

The Fight against Unemployment: Macroeconomic Analysis from the Center for European Policy Studies is an example of one of the studies Layard has published on this topic. With coeditor Lars Calmfors, he has collected papers that address the problems of capital shortages and other factors that led to the sharp rise in European unemployment during the 1980s. East-West Migration: The Alternatives, which Layard wrote with others, is an economic analysis that points out the differences in wages in eastern and western Europe and the migration of easterners to the west in search of higher pay, lower unemployment rates, and greater unemployment benefits.

Changing the Economic System in Russia, edited by Layard and Anders Aslund, is a collection by contributors who stress the need for drastic economic reform following the end of the Cold War. An Economist reviewer wrote: "The diagnosis is that Russia needs shock therapy. In the economic doctor's opinion, the collapse of communism left Russia with a government and civil service barely able to do anything. As much as possible, therefore, should be left to the market. Where the old regime's power survived intact—e.g., in the parliament—that power has been used to the country's detriment…. The book is informed by professional economic competence to a degree rare when looking at Russia." With John Parker, former Moscow correspondent and then special features editor for the Economist, Layard wrote The Coming Russian Boom: A Guide to New Markets and Politics, a study that follows Russian progress in integrating democracy and a rule of law and creating a market economy. They clearly present a Russia that is overcoming the trauma of reform and note that the poor and elderly continue to fair poorly. They are positive in their forecast that the leadership will progress as the problems of the past are overcome. Layard is an editor of and contributor to Emerging from Communism: Lessons from Russia, China, and Eastern Europe, which focuses not on the political, but the economic side of reform, and is a project of the Emerging Markets Group of the Centre for Economic Performance of the London School of Economics.

Layard and Richard N. Cooper are the editors of What the Future Holds: Insights from Social Science, in which contributors attempt the difficult task of forecasting the future. The book is a result of a conference that was held in Oxford in 1999, the purpose of which was to discuss how to look at the future, particularly in regard to population, energy, climate, work, monetary policy, government, and cybernetics. The first part of the book considers the use of alternative futures or scenarios, followed by a discussion of demographic changes. The section on energy studies erroneous predictions made in the past as to usage and dependence in considering the future of both fossil and alternative fuels and their regulation. In considering climate change, complex models are fed with emissions variables, resulting in various scenarios regarding surface temperatures.

Trends in work are considered in the areas of women's participation and wages, skill levels and age of workers, and the changes in the labor force worldwide. Monetary policy includes discussion of electronic banking, and increasing cooperation between governments is noted as a necessary evolution in dealing with climate, financial, trade, and migration trends and policy. Business Economics contributor Edmund A. Mennis wrote that this volume "contains provocative ideas, overlooked relationships, and challenging hypotheses that will broaden horizons and stimulate the reader's own thinking about the future."

In Happiness: Lessons from a New Science, Layard provides the result of studies that prove that in the West, increases in wealth do not result in commensurate increases in happiness. He proposes that in order for most people to lead happier lives, they would need a greater sense of community, security, and moral affirmation. Although increases in wealth do make people happy, the real jump in happiness comes when increased wealth takes a person out of poverty. Layard advises that we stop working so hard, stay married and have kids, and be more socially conscious. He also advises that governments decrease the taxes of low wage earners to that they can accomplish these goals and suggests that government should establish mandatory parenting classes and other programs to enhance happiness. In a New Statesman review, Barbara Gunnell wrote: "But is Layard right to believe it the proper business of government to make us happy? It is not so much the ambition that chills me as the thought of the heavy-handed and humourless way in which politicians might interpret such a duty."

BIOGRAPHICAL AND CRITICAL SOURCES:

PERIODICALS

Booklist, September 15, 1996, David Rouse, review of The Coming Russian Boom: A Guide to New Markets and Politics, p. 192.

Business Economics, July, 2002, Edmund A. Mennis, review of What the Future Holds: Insights from Social Science, p. 66.

Comparative Economics Studies, winter, 1999, Jozef M. Van Brabant, review of Emerging from Communism: Lessons from Russia, China, and Eastern Europe, p. 124.

Economist, May 8, 1993, review of Changing the Economic System in Russia, p. 95; November 16, 1996, review of The Coming Russian Boom, p. 9; January 15, 2005, review of Happiness: Lessons from a New Science, p. 78.

Fortune, February 21, 2005, Elizabeth Fenner, review of Happiness, p. 36.

Futurist, January-February, 2006, Patrick Tucker, review of Happiness, p. 55.

Industrial and Labor Relations Review, July, 1989, Barry McCormick, review of The Fight Against Unemployment: Macroeconomic Analysis from the Center for European Policy Studies, pp. 678-679; October, 1994, Adi Brender, review of East-West Migration: The Alternatives, pp. 178-179.

International Migration Review, spring, 1994, Vladimir Grecic, review of East-West Migration, p. 215.

Lancet, May 21, 2005, A.C. Grayling, review of Happiness, p. 1761.

Library Journal, February 1, 2002, Tim Delaney, review of What the Future Holds, p. 120; January 1, 2005, Deborah Bigelow, review of Happiness, p. 135.

Management Today, May 31, 2005, review of Happiness, p. 36.

New Statesman, March 14, 2005, Barbara Gunnell, review of Happiness, p. 50.

Orbis, summer, 1994, James L. Hecht, review of Changing the Economic System in Russia, p. 499.

Perspectives on Political Science, fall, 1999, Mark A. Cichock, review of Emerging from Communism, p. 236.

Reason, February, 2006, Will Wilkinson, review of Happiness, p. 61.

Science News, February 19, 2005, review of Happiness, p. 127.

Southern Economic Journal, July, 1994, Charles H. Anderton, review of Changing the Economic System in Russia, p. 220.