John F. Helliwell

John F. Helliwell (born August 15, 1937) is a Canadian economist,[1] professor emeritus of Economics at the University of British Columbia.

[13] He received a Doctor of Philosophy (DPhil) in economics from Nuffield College, Oxford's graduate college for the social sciences, with his thesis entitled The Investment Process, submitted in 1965 and received in 1966 based on research he conducted for the Royal Commission on Banking and Finance (1964) and the Royal Commission on Taxation (1966), in both cases studying how firms make decisions to invest in plant, equipment, and research.

A revised version of the thesis published by Oxford University Press entitled Public Policies and Private Investment in 1968.

Helliwell has served in a wide range of official advisory posts over the years,[13] including membership on the Royal Commission on National Passenger Transportation between 1989 and 1992, senior advisor to the secretary general of the OECD between 1983 and 1984, chair of economic advisory panel to the Canadian Minister of Finance between 1982 and 1984,[15] and president of the Canadian Economics Association between 1985 and 1986.

Over the course of their marriage, they have lived and worked in their respective fields in Cambridge, London, Ottawa, Oxford, Stockholm, Sydney and Paris.

In 2014, on behalf of the World Happiness Report, together with Richard Layard and Jeffrey Sachs, he was granted the International Society for Quality of Life Standards' Award for the Betterment of the Human Condition.

He has also spoken at the World Government Summit in 2017,[30] as a plenary speaker for the Regional Studies Association[31] in 2015, at the Social Identity Conference[32] in 2014, the Gallup Positive Psychology Summit in Washington in 2006, the Gross National Happiness conferences in Nova Scotia in 2005[33] and Brazil 2009,[34] the Development Conference in Celebration of the Diamond Jubilee of the Indian Statistical Institute in New Delhi in 2007, International Forum on Well-Being and Development Policy in Guadalajara in 2014, European Meetings of the International Positive Psychology Association held in Amsterdam in 2015.