Contributor(s): Professor Lord Richard Layard, Professor Lord Robert Skidelsky | In his book, Happiness (recently updated), Richard Layard argues that the best societies are those with the most happiness and the least misery. Public policy should be made on this basis. Robert Skidelsky has many reservations. They debate the issue. Richard Layard is Emeritus Professor of Economics at the London School of Economics, where he was, until 2003, the founder-director of the Centre for Economic Performance. He now heads the Centre's Programme on Well-Being. Since 2000 he has been a member of the House of Lords. Robert Skidelsky is Emeritus Professor of Political Economy at the University of Warwick. His three-volume biography of the economist John Maynard Keynes (1983, 1992, 2000) received numerous prizes, and he recently published Keynes: The Return of the Master. His forthcoming book is called How Much is Enough? The Economics of the Good Life jointly written with his son Edward Skidelsky. He was made a life peer in 1991.
