Paul Dolan (academic)

Paul Dolan
Born	(1968-05-10) 10 May 1968 London, United Kingdom
Nationality	British
Alma mater	University of York
Notable work	The best seller ‘Happiness by Design’ was published by Penguin in August 2014.
Awards	Philip Leverhulme Prize in economics for contribution to health economics
Website	pauldolan.co.uk
Main interests	Behavioural sciences and Happiness

Paul Dolan (born 10 May 1968), London^[1] is a Professor of Behavioural Sciences in the Department of Social Policy at the London School of Economics and Political Science^[2] and is Director of the Executive MSc in Behavioural Science which began in September 2014.^[3] He is a best selling author and an internationally renowned expert on happiness, behaviour and public policy, he conducts original research into the measurement of happiness, its causes and consequences. He has previously held academic posts at York, Newcastle, Sheffield and Imperial and he has been a visiting scholar at Princeton University^[4]

Education

Dolan gained his degree in economics from Swansea University in 1989. His masters and doctorate on "Issues in the valuation of health outcomes" both came from University of York in 1991 and 1997 respectively.^[1]

Career

Professor Dolan has over 100 peer-reviewed publications which cover many topics including behavioural science, subjective wellbeing, equity in health and health valuation.^[5] He currently holds the position of the Chief Academic Advisor on Economic Appraisal for the UK Government's Economic Service. He is also a member of National Academy of Sciences Panel on Wellbeing and of the Measuring National Wellbeing Advisory Forum. In addition he is a visiting Professor at Imperial College London and an associate of the Institute for Government.^[6]

He is an author of the "Mindspace" report published by the UK Cabinet Office which seeks to apply lessons from the psychological and behavioural sciences to social policy.^[7]

In 2013 Dolan appeared at the Hay Festival in Cartegena, Colombia^[8] and discussed the role of modern technology and happiness, as well as his work on experiences of purpose,^[9] attention, and happiness. He also gave the Queen's Lecture on "Happiness by Design" at the TU Berlin in November 2013.^[10] Since that Professor Dolan has taken part in a number of national and international speaking events and has appeared on TV in ITV this morning as well as a BBC 2 Horizons series ‘How do we really make decisions?’

On 28 August 2014 Dolan published his book Happiness by Design, with foreword by Nobel Prize winner Daniel Kahneman.^[11]

Most of us would like to be happier in his book Dolan defines this as experiencing more pleasure and/or purpose for longer. He describes how being happier means allocating attention more efficiently; towards those things that bring us pleasure and purpose and away from those that generate pain and pointlessness. Easier said than done of course, and certainly easier than thought about. But behavioural science teaches us that most of what we do simply comes about rather than being thought about. So, by clever use of priming, defaults, commitments, norms, you can become a whole lot happier without actually having to think too hard about it. You will be happier by design.

Awards

In 2002 he won the Philip Leverhulme Prize in economics for his contribution to health economics; in particular, for his work on QALYs (quality adjusted life years).^[12]

Selected bibliography

Books

• Dolan, Paul; Olsen, Jan Abel (2002). Distributing health care: economic and ethical issues. Oxford New York: Oxford University Press. ISBN 9780192632531. 
• Dolan, Paul (2014). Happiness by design: change what you do, not how you think. New York: Hudson Street Press. ISBN 9781594632433. 

Journal articles

• Dolan, Paul; Anand, Paul (January 2005). "Introduction: Equity, capabilities and health". Social Science & Medicine - special issue: equity, capabilities and health. Elsevier: Science Direct. 60 (2): 219–222. doi:10.1016/j.socscimed.2004.04.031. 

Papers

• Dolan, Paul; Metcalfe, Robert (October 2008), Comparing willingness-to-pay and subjective well-being in the context of non-market goods - CEP discussion paper no. 890 (PDF), Center for Economic Performance. 

Major Speaking events in 2015

Selected national television

ITV This Morning

ITV Tonight

Channel 4 Sunday Brunch

ABC Late line Australia

ABC One Plus One

BBC 2 Horizon, ‘How do we really make decisions?’

Selected national radio

BBC Radio 4, Saturday Morning

BBC Radio 4, You and Yours

BBC 5 live

BBC R3 Free Thinking Festival

BBC London, Local Radio, World News, Newcastle, Wales, Essex

Selected newspaper, magazine, and blog articles 2015 - major outlets/ national newspapers

References

External links

• Paul Dolan