Unemployment: the way forward for Europe

This paper was originally delivered as a TSB Forum lecture in Glasgow on Thursday 28 October, 1993. Professor Layard argues that unemployment must be reduced permanently below the intolerable levels of the 1980s and early 1990s. To achieve this, reforms must be made in the areas of training and job subsidies for those unemployed for 6-12 months, in training of young people, and in systems of wage determination

In brief: Job guarantee: a new promise on long-term unemployment

Richard Layard and Paul Gregg call for a 'job guarantee' for jobseekers who have been out of work for 12 months or more

Big ideas: wellbeing and public policy

Richard Layard outlines the development of CEP research on what makes people happy and how society might best be organised to promote happiness.Wellbeing, happiness, public policy

Does Relative Income Matter?: Are the Critics Right?

Do other peoples' incomes reduce the happiness which people in advanced countries experience from any given income? And does this help to explain why in the U.S., Germany and some other advanced countries, happiness has been constant for many decades? The answer to both questions is "Yes". We provide 4 main pieces of evidence. 1) In the U.S. General Survey (repeated samples since 1972) comparator income has a negative effect on happiness equal in magnitude to the positive effect of own income. 2) In the West German Socio-Economic Panel since 1984 the same istrue but with life satisfaction as the dependant variable. We also use the Panel to compare the effect of income comparisons and of adaptation as factors explaining the stable level of life-satisfaction: income comparisons emerge as much the more important. 3) When in our U.S. analysis we introduce "perceived" relative income as a potential explanatory variable, its effect is as large as the effect of actual relative income - further supporting the view that comparisons matter. 4) Finally, for a panel of European countries since 1973 we estimate the effect of average income upon average lifesatisfaction, splitting income into two components: trend and cycle. The effect of trend income is small and illdefined. Our conclusions relate to time series and to advanced countries only. They differ from those drawn in recent studies by Deaton and Stevenson/Wolfers, but those studies are largely cross-sectional and mostly include non-advanced as well as advanced countries.Easterlin Paradox, happiness, relative income, growth

Law, sex and the city: Regulating sexual entertainment venues in England and Wales

Purpose – This paper aims to explore how municipal law, in its various guises, serves to police the boundaries of acceptable sexual conduct by considering how Sexual Entertainment Venues (SEVs) in British cities are controlled through diverse techniques of licensing and planning control. Design/methodology/approach – The paper describes the emergence of permissive new licensing controls that provide local authorities considerable control over SEVs. Licensing decisions, judicial review cases and planning inspectorate adjudications since the inception of the new powers are examined to explore the logic of judgements preventing SEVs operating in specific localities. Findings – Through analysis of case studies, it is shown that local authorities have almost total discretion to prevent SEVs operating in specific localities, particularly those undergoing, or anticipated to be undergoing, redevelopment and regeneration. Originality/value – This paper offers unique insights on the “scope” of municipal law by highlighting how land uses associated with “sexual minority” interests are regulated in the interests of urban regeneration, redevelopment and restructuring