Professor Sir Angus Deaton delivered the 2016 Annual Lecture on 5 October - "Can the government make you happy? Should it try?"
Professor Sir Angus Deaton is the Dwight D. Eisenhower Professor of Economics and International Affairs at the Woodrow Wilson School of Public and International Affairs and the Economics Department at Princeton University. In October 2015 he was awarded the Sveriges Riksbank Prize in Economic Sciences in Memory of Alfred Nobel.
Below you can watch an interview in which he discusses his groundbreaking work on happiness with IFS Research Director Sir Richard Blundell.
Authors

Research Associate Princeton University
Angus is the Dwight D Eisenhower Professor of Economics and International Affairs, Emeritus and Senior Scholar at Princeton University.
Presentation details
- DOI
- 10.1920/ps.ifs.2024.0023
- Publisher
- IFS
Suggested citation
Deaton, A. (2016). 'IFS Annual Lecture: Professor Angus Deaton (Princeton) - "Can the government make you happy? Should it try?"' [Presentation]. London: IFS. Available at: https://ifs.org.uk/publications/ifs-annual-lecture-professor-angus-deaton-princeton-can-government-make-you-happy (accessed: 22 May 2025).
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