Professor Andrew Oswald, Professor of Economics and Behavioural Science at the University of Warwick, has been named a Citation Laureate by the prestigious Institute of Scientific Information, for his pioneering contributions to the economics of happiness and well-being.

Professor Oswald joins an esteemed group of world-class researchers to receive the honour, many of whom have gone on to receive a Nobel Prize. 

The Institute for Scientific Information (ISI), which identifies researchers whose work is ‘of Nobel class’, is part of Clarivate, a global leader in providing trusted information and insights to accelerate the pace of innovation across research areas recognised by Nobel Prizes – physiology or medicine, physics, chemistry and economics.

In selecting Citation Laureates, ISI analysts examine data of researchers who are cited more than 1,000 times, before refining the list of researchers further to those whose highly cited work is clearly associated with a significant discovery or advance on a scale that the Nobel committees typically reward.

As a Professor of Economics and Behavioural Science, Professor Oswald’s body of work has been recognised for its development of and contributions to applied economics and quantitative social science, which has included work on job satisfaction, human happiness, mental health, pain and the business cycle and labour productivity.

Today, his work sees him join the Hall of Citation Laureates for his pioneering contributions to the economics of happiness and well-being. This includes providing statistical ways to measure the impact of different influences on happiness over the course of people's lives, and to estimate the forces that shape the happiness levels within different nations (the role of the welfare state, the consequences of inflation, the effects of clean air, and so on).

University of Warwick Professor and Citation Laureate, Professor Andrew Oswald, commented: “It is a great honour to be recognised as a Citation Laureate, most especially alongside my international colleague, Richard Easterlin, who is now in his nineties and helped establish this field of economics in the 1970s. It is also humbling to join a group of researchers who are responsible for some of the important advances in society.

“I would also like to take this opportunity to thank the University of Warwick, particularly the Economics Department, which for some decades has not only allowed but encouraged me to undertake often-unconventional types of research. Without this support my work would not have been possible.” 

University of Warwick Vice-Chancellor, Stuart Croft, said: “I’m delighted that Andrew’s outstanding and ground-breaking research has been recognised with the Citation Laureate. It’s a richly deserved world-class accolade for a truly world-class leader in his field. Joining the Hall of Citation Laureates is a testament to his commitment and passion for advancing our knowledge and understanding of happiness and well-being.”

In addition to his role at the University of Warwick, Professor Oswald is an honorary Senior Research Fellow in the Wellbeing Research Centre at Manchester Harris College, University of Oxford, and a Research Fellow at the IZA Institute in Bonn with special responsibility for work on climate change. He also serves on the board of editors of Science.

Professor Oswald is one of three recipients of this award, joining Richard Easterlin, Professor Emeritus of Economics at the University of Southern California, and Professor Richard Layard, Emeritus Professor of Economics at LSE and Director of the Wellbeing Programme at the Centre for Economic Performance.

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Notes to Editors:

Further details of Professor Oswald’s research, can be found here: https://warwick.ac.uk/fac/soc/economics/staff/ajoswald/ 

Picture: Prof Andrew Oswald. Courtesy of Oxford Atelier.

University of Warwick press office contact: Simmie Korotane | Media Relations | Press & Media Relations | University of Warwick
Email: Simmie.korotane@warwick.ac.uk 

21 Sept 2022