Centrepiece the Magazine of the Centre for Economic Performance Volume 25 Issue 1 Spring 2020

CentrePiece The Magazine of The Centre for Economic Performance Volume 25 Issue 1 Spring 2020 CAN WE BE HAPPIER? The cost of being young Poor students Regional inequalities Cluster policy Self-employment TV superstars CentrePiece CentrePiece is the magazine of the CEP director, Stephen Machin Centre for Economic Performance at the Editor, Romesh Vaitilingam London School of Economics. Articles in this Design, DesignRaphael Ltd issue reflect the opinions of the authors, not Print, Westminster European/Lavenham Press Ltd of the Centre. Requests for permission to reproduce the articles should be sent to the © Centre for Economic Performance 2020 Editor at the address below. Volume 25 Issue 1 (ISSN 1362-3761) All rights reserved. Editorial and Subscriptions Office Centre for Economic Performance London School of Economics Houghton Street London WC2A 2AE Annual subscriptions for one year (3 issues): Individuals £13.00 Students £8.00 Organisations (UK and Europe) £30.00 Rest of world £39.00 Visa and Mastercard accepted Cheques payable to London School of Economics Editorial Since the general election in December, between generations and inequalities in And in an investigation of differences the new catchphrase in UK public policy people’s wellbeing. in the consumer prices facing generational discussions is ‘levelling up’ – what can be In a study of access to higher groups, Rahat Siddique notes that the done to help parts of the country where education, Gill Wyness and colleagues UK’s young adults – the ‘millennials’ – economic performance is comparatively find that many young people from poorer are changing their spending patterns weak. Spatial disparities have long been backgrounds attend less academically compared with previous generations as a focus of work at the Centre for prestigious courses than their A-level they navigate a contrasting economic Economic Performance (CEP) – and in attainment merits. They conclude that landscape, including low real wage this CentrePiece, our research director widening participation units at high- growth, lower likelihood of owning Henry Overman surveys what we know ranking universities could do important their own home and the uncertain about the economic forces polarising outreach work to address this inequality prospects of Brexit. the UK and the potential of various by attracting more disadvantaged Finally, our cover story outlines the policy responses. students from their local areas. evidence on what explains the huge A central message is that we should In an analysis of the very different variation in people’s life satisfaction, care more about the effect of policies on kinds of people who make up the one in notably mental and physical health, and people than on places: the key question seven of the UK workforce who are now our human relationships at work and is the extent to which they improve the in self-employment, Jack Blundell detects at home. In his new book Can We Be life circumstances and life opportunities a sizeable group of less educated young Happier?, CEP’s founder director Richard of individuals and groups of people living men, who stand out as being dissatisfied Layard explores how we can boost all- in particular places, rather than their and most likely to report being self- round happiness – both through public impact on gaps between regions, cities employed due to a lack of better options. policy and in our jobs and private lives. and towns. This is echoed in other articles The policy challenge is how to support in this issue, which explore inequalities in them without impeding the flexibility Romesh Vaitilingam, Editor education and employment, inequalities enjoyed by others in self-employment. [email protected] CentrePiece Spring 2020 page 6 The UK’s self-employed workers page 24 Contents TV superstars Page 2 in brief… Can we be happier? Richard Layard and George Ward outline how we Page 16 can boost wellbeing, both through public policy and in Swings and silicon roundabouts: our jobs and private lives does cluster policy work? Max Nathan evaluates a flagship programme set up a decade Page 6 ago to accelerate the growth of East London’s Tech City The UK’s self-employed workers: who they are and what they need Page 22 Jack Blundell is developing a typology of self-employed Mismatched students and universities workers, in part to identify vulnerable groups who may Gill Wyness and colleagues find that many disadvantaged benefit from policy support students attend less academically prestigious courses than their A-level attainment merits Page 10 People, places and politics: the Page 28 challenge of ‘levelling up’ the UK Pupil exclusion in academy schools Henry Overman assesses policies to address the Stephen Machin and Matteo Sandi ask whether wide disparities in economic performance between stricter disciplinary measures are intended more to improve towns, cities and regions educational results than to tackle bad behaviour Page 18 page 16 The cost of being young: measuring Swings and silicon intergenerational consumer prices roundabouts Rahat Siddique explores an important aspect of the economic landscape facing the UK’s young adults – the City Road ‘millennial’ generation Page 24 TV superstars: how a new technology Old Street disrupted the entertainment industry Felix Koenig explains how the rollout of TV in mid-twentieth Old Street century America benefited a handful of superstars but few City Road other entertainers 1 City Road Old Street Old Street City Road CentrePiece Spring 2020 If the goal for society is the greatest possible all-round happiness, how can that be achieved? Richard Layard and George Ward outline the evidence on what explains the huge variation in people’s life satisfaction – and how we can boost wellbeing, both through public policy and in our jobs and private lives. Can we be happier? 2 CentrePiece Spring 2020 homas Jefferson said that Figure 1: ‘The care of human life and What things best explain the spread of happiness in Britain? happiness… is the first and only legitimate object of good Mental health Tgovernment.’ We agree with him, as did the LSE’s main architects – the Webbs and Quality of work William Beveridge. So too do an increasing Partnered number of policy-makers worldwide: Physical health only last October, the European Union’s Council of Ministers requested that all of Income its member states ‘put people and their Not employed wellbeing at the centre of policy design’. This basic idea goes back to the Non-criminality eighteenth century Enlightenment and it is, Education in our view, the most important idea of the modern age. But until recently, it has not 0 0.05 0.1 0.15 0.2 been easy to apply for lack of systematic Partial correlation coefficients knowledge about the causes of happiness. The new science of happiness is now Source: Mainly the British Household Panel Survey. changing all that, while at the same time modern psychology provides individuals politicians assume. The biggest single factor their lives. And in general, the costs of such with new tools to manage their emotions is mental health – whether you have ever improvements in social and psychological and their human relationships. been diagnosed with depression or an infrastructure are small compared with the With these tools, millions of individuals anxiety disorder. costs of physical infrastructure. And the and policy-makers worldwide are already Next come human relationships – subsequent savings are often enough to taking active steps to create happier including the quality of your work and repay the costs. lives – a world happiness movement is your private life – as well as your physical In our book, we review what can be being born. In our new book, Can We Be health. While all of these factors explain done to raise happiness by many of the Happier? Evidence and Ethics, we describe 18% of the variance of happiness, key players in society. We can start with the new tools – the evidence on what income inequality explains only 1%. teachers. Children’s wellbeing should causes happiness and how we can increase Unemployment causes even less – it is a clearly be a major goal for every school, happiness, both through public policy and devastating experience but affects relatively and schools should be measuring their in our jobs and private lives. few people. wellbeing on a yearly basis. To improve So what causes the huge variation in We find this disconcerting since poverty wellbeing requires major changes in the people’s life satisfaction? Figure 1 provides and unemployment are the topics on ethos in many schools, but it also requires the answer for Britain, and the key factors which Richard has worked for most of his the weekly teaching of life skills, using are very different from the ones that most life. So is it possible that they are more evidence-based materials. important at explaining the scale of really To facilitate this, our research group low life satisfaction? The answer is No: the sponsored and evaluated a complete ranking of factors is essentially the same course of life skills for children aged as in Figure 1. And this applies in all the 11-15 called ‘Healthy Minds’, which has advanced countries that we have studied. dedicated lesson plans and materials. Moreover, if people themselves are asked In the evaluation, this passed the cost- what they worry about most, the ranking effectiveness test of the National Institute of factors is much the same (Sainsbury’s, for Health and Care Excellence (NICE) at 2019): money and debt come sixth. a cost of only 3% of NICE’s maximum But the next issue is this: the state can permitted cost (Lordan and McGuire, 2018; do something about income inequality and Layard et al, 2018). unemployment, but can it do anything After school, young people enter the about mental illness or the quality of world of work, where research shows work, or loneliness, or family conflict and that the worst time in the week is when Governments domestic violence? To this, the answer is workers are with their boss.

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