Professor Paul Anand

I have held fellowships in Oxford and Cambridge Universities and am currently a Professor at the Open University and Research Associate at HERC in Oxford University. My work stems from long standing interests in the foundations of decision sciences, used to be primarily normative, and have argued for the expansion of decision theory beyond older conceptions of rational choice, something that has, broadly speaking, taken place both in economics and philosophy. In recent years, I have been interested in the operationalisation of Sen’s capabilities approach to welfare economics and its use in debates about the measurement of progress.

Earlier work has been published in a variety of leading economics journals including The Economic Journal, Theory and Decision, Oxford Economic Papers, Economica, Journal of Health Economics, Annals of Operations Research and much of it is collected in my monograph Foundations of Rational Choice Under Risk published by Oxford University Press in 1993 (with reprints in 1995 and 2002). In addition, I have just edited and contributed to the Oxford University Press Handbook of Rational and Social Choice with Professor Prasanta Pattanaik (Riverside, University of California, USA) and Professor Clemens Puppe (Karlsruhe University, Germany) to be published in 2008. Work on capabilities and wellbeing is summarised in greater detail on the capabilities measurement project website.

I have also been interested in the interaction these theories and their development in policy contexts or experimental and survey based work. This work has been published in a wide variety of scientific journals including Science, Journal of Theoretical Politics, British Journal of Management, Social Theory and Practice, Social Indicators Research, Health Care Analysis and the Journal of Economic Psychology.

Having taught research methods at graduate level for five years and acted as a consultant researcher on economic statistics to the OECD and NAO my most recent work brings a these interests together with interests in the foundations of social choice. With about 25 colleagues, at the latest count, I have sought to demonstrate the extent to which the measurement of human capabilities is feasible along multiple dimensions and explore the techniques that can be applied to such measurements. This work has resulted in approximately a dozen publications and has been incorporated into research projects in Oxford, Glasgow and Buenos Aires.

At the Open University I also have interests in visual methods and public dissemination of science and was the academic consultant for ‘The Rules of the Game’, a 3 part BBC TV series presented by P Y Gerbeau that highlighted the economics of innovation, households and game theory.

Grants

I have been the principal applicant or co-applicant on grants from a number of funders including:

• Arts and Humanities Research Council
• European Science Foundation
• ESRC
• Leverhulme Trust
• NHS Service Delivery Organisation
• NSO (Netherlands)
• OECD
• National Audit Office
• Royal Economics Society

Service has included:

• ESRC Evaluation Committee Member
• Office of National Statistics Technical Advisory Committee for Measures of Wellbeing
• Advisor to Parliamentary Office of Science and Technology
• Research Commissioner, SDO - National Health Service
• Steering Committee Member, Heads of Economics Departments (UK)
• Fellow of the Human Capabilities and Development Association
• Head of Department (3 years)
• Genetics Health Economics Research Steering Group Member, Oxford University
• External examinerships at Cambridge University, Leeds University, Henley Business School, King’s College London University and the Central European University

Editorial board memberships and guest editorships have included:

• Theory and Decision, Journal of Economic Psychology; Journal of Socio-Economics; Journal of Applied Philosophy; Journal of Behavioural Decision-Making; Risk Decision and Policy; Social Science and Medicine; Social Indicators Research

Other affiliations

• Research Associate, Health Economics Research Centre, Oxford University
• Research Associate, CPNSS, London School of Economics

Visitorships

• Harvard University (February 2008)
• Centre for Philosophy of Natural and Social Sciences, LSE
• Institute of Economics and Statistics, Oxford University

Selected talks

New College, Oxford; Institute of Agricultural Economics, Oxford; Tinbergen Institute of Econometrics, Netherlands; Indian Statistical Institute, India; HCDA conference, UNESCO, Paris; Spoleto Science Conference, Italy; Centre of Philosophy of Natural Social Sciences, LSE; Economic Theory Workshops, University of Osnbruck, Germany; Social Choice Workshop, University of Caen, France; Poverty Measurement and Economics, University of Barcelona, Spain; Health Economic Theory Workshop, Denmark; Philosophy Department, Groningen University; Department of Economics, Galway University, Ireland.

Anand, P., Durand, M., Heckman J., (2011) The Measurement of progress –some achivements and challenges, Journal of the Royal Statistical Society A, 174, 851-5.

Anand P, Krishnakumar J and Tran NB 2011 Measuring Welfare: Latent variable Models for Happiness and Capabilities in the Presence of Unobservable Heterogeneity, Journal of Public Economics, 95 (3-4), 205-15.

Anand P 2011 New Directions in the Economics of Welfare: Special Issue celebrating Nobel Laureate Amartya Sen’s 75th Birthday, Journal of Public Economics, 95 (3-4), 191-2.

Anand, Paul and Lea, Stephen (2011). The psychology and behavioral economics of poverty. Journal of Economic Psychology, 32(2), pp. 284–293.

Anand, Paul and Gray, Alistair (2009). Obesity as market failure: could a ‘deliberative economy’ overcome the problems of paternalism? Kyklos, 62(2), pp. 182–190.

Anand, Paul; Hunter, Graham; Carter, Ian; Dowding, Keith; Guala, Francesco and van Hees, Martin (2009). The development of capability indicators. Journal of Human Development and Capabilities, 10(1), pp. 125–152.

Anand, P., Santos, C. and Smith, R. (2009) The Measurement of Capabilities, in Festschrift for Amartya Sen, (Basu and Kanbur eds), Oxford, Oxford University Press.

Anand, P., Pattanaik, P. and Puppe, P. (2009) The Oxford Handbook of Rational and Social Choice, Oxford, Oxford University Press.

Anand, P. and Santos, C. (2007) Violence, Gender Inequalities and Life Satisfaction, Revue d’Economie Politiques, 117, 135-60.

Anand, P. and van Hees, M. (2006) Capabilities and Achievements: (with M v Hees), Journal of Socio-Economics, 35, 268-84 ISSN 1053-5357.

Anand, P. (2006) The Economics of Wellbeing: Introduction (with Andrew Clark), Journal of Socio-Economics, 35, 177-9 ISSN 1053-5357.

Anand, P. (2005) Capabilities and Health, Journal of Medical Ethics, 31, 299-303 ISSN 0306 6800 (1473-4257 online).

Anand, P., Hunter, G. and Smith, R., (2005) Capabilities and Wellbeing, Social Indicators Research, 74 (1), 9-55 ISSN 0303-8300.

Anand, P .and Dolan, P. (2005) Equity Capabilities and Health: Introduction, Social Science and Medicine, 60 (2), 219-222 ISSN 0277-9536.

Anand, P. (2005) QALYS and Capabilities, Health Economics, 14 (1283-86) available online from 8 June 2005 DOI: 10.1002/hec.1002.

Wailoo, A. and Anand, P. (2005) The Nature of Procedural Preferences for Health-Care Rationing Decisions, Social Science and Medicine, 60 (2), 223-236 ISSN 0277-9536.

Anand, P. (2003) 'The Integration of Claims to Health-Care: A Programming Approach', Journal of Health Economics, 22 (5), pp. 731-745.

van Hees, M. and Anand, P. (2003) 'New Choices: Genomics Freedom and Morality', Social Theory and Practice, 29, pp. 607-630.

Anand, P. (2002) 'Decision-Making when Science is Ambiguous', Science, 8th March.

Anand, P (2001) 'Procedural Fairness in Economic and Social Choice: Evidence from a Survey of Voters, Journal of Economic Psychology, 22, pp. 247–70.

Anand, P. (2000) 'Decisions vs. willingness to pay in social choice', Environmental Values, 9, pp. 419-30.

Anand, P. and Wailoo, A. (2000) 'Utilities vs. rights to publicly provided goods: arguments and evidence from health-care rationing', Economica, 67, pp. 543–577.

Anand, P. (1999) 'Written Evidence to the BSE Inquiry' chaired by Lord Justice Phillips.

Anand, P. (1999) 'QALYS and the integration of claims in health-care rationing', Health Care Analysis, 7, pp. 239-53.

Anand, P. (1998) 'Should we use simultaneous equations to model decision-making?' Annals of Operations Research, 80, pp. 253-62.

Anand, P. (1998) 'Blame, game theory and economic policy', Journal of Theoretical Politics, 10, pp. 111-23.

Anand, P. (1993) 'The philosophy of intransitive preference', The Economic Journal, 103, pp. 337-46.

I am currently chair a level 3 course on micro-economics projects, contribute to the production of a level 2 course on economics and have contributed to a range of courses on the Environment and Psychology. Previously as Head of Department I worked with two other departments to introduce to the Open University, an undergraduate degree in Politics, Philosophy and Economics (PPE).