But Lord Layard's argument implies that people have a tendency to work too much.
The pursuit of happiness, Lord Layard's book will convince most people, is a private matter.
The unhappiness that one person's extra income can cause to others, argues Lord Layard, is a form of pollution.
As Lord Layard himself says, unemployment visits terrible unhappiness on those it afflicts.
Wilkinson and economists like Oswald and his compatriot Lord Layard are thinking about the policy implications of happiness research.
Yet even if Lord Layard's theory is right, his figure for the optimal tax rate looks like little more than convenient guesswork.
To counter such Panglossian logic, Lord Layard draws upon the findings of behavioural economists, who make use of the insights and techniques of psychologists.
"I've come to believe in the old-fashioned view that one should be tender in one's dealings with colleagues, " Lord Layard told me in an interview.
Lord Layard, a member of the Lords committee, thinks that so many teenagers end up adrift because there is no clear, attractive route for non-academic youngsters to take.
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And so, near the top of Lord Layard's list for improving human happiness, comes the following recommendation: much higher rates of income tax to tame the rat race.
The result of this, suggests Lord Layard, is that developed societies may tend to work too hard in order to consume more material goods, and so consume too little leisure.
So, Lord Layard's thinking goes, by spending 90 hours a week in the office, you may be improving your own income, but you are also causing other people to feel less satisfied with theirs.
Lord Layard's analysis suggests an alternative view: it is not that Europeans are working too little, but that Americans work too long, driven to choose more income instead of leisure by an urge to keep up with the Joneses.
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