Katherine is a political economist, writer and advocate for economic system change. Her roles include writer-at-large and co-director of the Compassion in Financial Services Hub at the University of Edinburgh, Economic Change Lead at The Next Economy, and Strategic Advisor to the Centre for Policy Development. She co-founded the Wellbeing Economy Alliance (WEAll) and also WEAll Scotland, its Scottish hub.
Katherine instigated the group of Wellbeing Economy Governments (WEGo) – comprising Scotland, New Zealand, Finland, Wales, Iceland, and Canada. She is a Distinguished Vistor at ANU’s Planetary Health Equity Hothouse, was 2024 thinker-in-residence at the Australian Health Promotion Association, is a New Economics Senior Fellow at the The Zoe Institute, and is a Fellow of The Post Growth Institute.
She is a member of the Club of Rome and sits on the boards of Hands Across Canberra, the Wellbeing Economy Lab Denmark, and the Centre for Understanding Sustainable Prosperity.
She has over eight years’ experience in various roles with Oxfam GB, where she developed Oxfam’s Humankind Index and led Oxfam’s work on downscaling the ‘doughnut’ for various national contexts.
Katherine has Bachelor Degrees in Economics and in Politics (University of Melbourne) and holds a PhD in Political Science from the Australian National University. She worked for the University of Glasgow as a Research Fellow from 2005-2009 and was Honorary Professor at the University of the West of Scotland and Senior Visiting Research Fellow at the University of Strathclyde (based at the Fraser of Allander Institute).
Her most recent book The Economics of Arrival: Ideas for a Grown Up Economy (co-authored with Jeremy Williams and published by Policy Press) was published in January 2019 and her major report Being Bold: Budgeting for Children’s Wellbeing was launched in March 2021. Her two Tedx talks are about ‘Why the future economy has to be a wellbeing economy’ and ‘a new definition of wealth and prosperity’.
Katherine is mainly based in Australia, but every now and again makes it back to her beloved Scotland. Perhaps unsurprisingly, she loves Australian gum trees, the rain, and the Scottish mountains. When life allows she is invariably cooking for friends, ideally accompanied by a glass or two of Aussie wine and almost inevitably some old school music!
Lecture to Per Capita Community Tax Summit, February 2025
Lecture to WEAll Aotearoa’s 2024 Economy for Public Good Conference in Pōneke Wellington, New Zealand
Wellbeing Economy Forum, Iceland 2024
For Edinburgh Futures Institute, recorded May 2024
SEEDs conference, October 2023
ANU’s Planetary Health Equity Hothouse
Examples in Canberra filmed for the PGI
Auckland conversations
European Policy Centre policy dialogue
Happiness and its causes conference
Opening remarks to WEAll Scotland’s conference
Interview for ABC 730 Report
Conversation with Kaisie Rayner
Erno Hannink interview.
ABC News
George Institute webinar
Debating Europe discussion alongside Yanis Varoufakis & Martin Wolf
Conversation with Kate Raworth & Sophie Howe, hosted by WEAll Cymru Wales Hub
Building an Economy of Wellbeing
Understanding the Wellbeing Economy
“For a sustainable post-covid recovery, this forum believes we should replace GDP with an alternative well-being indicator”. June 2021
Wellbeing budgets and the Wellbeing Economy Agenda
Development Trusts NI conference
Hosted by Caroline Lucas MP & the APPG on Limits to Growth
Why our measures of progress need to change to address the climate emergency
What is the Wellbeing Economy and why should we value the wellbeing of people and the planet more? Hosted by Pakhuis De Zwijger.
Chatting about how the economy isn’t something that is fixed and unchangeable. It’s a human creation so we humans can change it if we want to.
The Seeds NZ
Talking Mountains and Nature, life, career and systems change.
Talking with Gerry McCartney and Carmel Williams about challenging the role of economic growth and GDP as a measure for success, Dr. Trebeck leads us to think about alternatives to our systems and what the driving purposes of government and economies should be.
On Bernard Hickey’s podcast talking about how the machinery of government, politicians and voters can think and plan differently to avoid that same pound-foolishness again.
ABC Radio Melbourne
Research is being done globally into the idea of a wellbeing economy, starting with a wellbeing budget, and the concept is already being trialled. How does it work? And could it help relieve the rising cost of living?
In this FEPS talk episode Katherine Trebeck, co-founder of the Wellbeing Economy Alliance, and Andreas Dimmelmeier, Policy Analyst on Climate and Environment, introduce and debate about the concept of a Wellbeing economy.
On the final episode of Policy Forum Pod for 2022, Katherine Trebeck and Millie Rooney join us to reflect on this year’s big policy issues and consider the opportunities for change that lie before us.
As the impacts of climate breakdown intensify, the cost of living crisis takes hold globally, and levels of inequality remain stubbornly high, it begs the question: is our economic system working to meet the needs of people and the planet?
Katherine Trebeck presented at the RCS Convergence Conference last July and her compelling session there and this interview centres around the economies of the world, their often misguided methods of measurement and indicators of ‘success’, and introduces the principles of the ‘wellbeing economy’, focusing on more human and community-centric measures of success and prosperity.
Towards Sustainable Well-Being (edited by Anders Hayden, Céofride Gaudet and Jeffrey Wilson) examines existing efforts and emerging possibilities to improve upon gross domestic product as the dominant indicator of economic and social performance. Contributions from leading international and Canadian researchers in the field of beyond-GDP measurement offer a rich range of perspectives on alternative ways to measure well-being and sustainability, along with lessons from around the world on how to bring those metrics into the policy process.
In ‘Thrive. Fundamentals for a New Economy’, Kees Klomp and Shinta Oosterwaal provide insights into alternative approaches that are sustainable and just for both society and the planet. In twenty-four essays, internationally renowned economic thinkers share the alternatives, such as doughnut economics, wellbeing economics, common good economics, regenerative economics, commons economics, local economics, bioregional economics, indigenous economics and degrowth economics. Each provides a realistic and enticing vision of a thriving future.
Scotland After the Virus is a book responding to Scotland’s experience of the COVID pandemic and imagining Scotland after the virus.
Edited by Gerry Hassan & Simon Barrow who have previously collaborated with A Nation Changed in 2017 and Scotland the Brave? in 2019, this is their first book to include fiction and poetry as well as nonfiction. The book has sections covering politics, wellbeing, equality, culture and more.
What do people and planet really need from the economy? Is the quality of life undermined by the drive for economic growth at all costs? In this provocative book, Trebeck and Williams describe a new challenge: a move from expansion to inclusion.
Neoliberalism – the set of economic ideas and policies that have dominated politics for the past 40 years – is rapidly losing legitimacy in the face of multiple crises: stagnant or falling living standards, sharply rising inequality of income and wealth, financial fragility and environmental breakdown. At this critical juncture, new ideas about the kind of society we want to live in, and the future we want to see, are needed more than ever.
Chapter in Knock Twice (edited by Andrew Simms), a new collection of 25 modern folk tales for troubling times. Realising the limits of facts and policy alone to change the world, an innovative group of leading experts on many of the most critical issues facing us – from climate change to inequality and corrupt corporations- has written folk tales for our troubling times.
What is the best way to run a country? How long should a person be obliged to work every day? What will the economy look like after Brexit?
In this new take on the Scottish economy, experts Trebeck, Boyd and Kerevan address how our economy can serve us, as opposed to the people serving the economy. They believe that current economic policies are not aligned with what we as people need in these times of rampant inequality and inequitable distribution, advocating an increased focus on the quality of Scotland’s economy.
Human development may encompass social, cultural and spiritual facets as well as economic improvement, and development organizations are beginning to recognize this fact. But building into programming a wider understanding of development throws up a number of questions: how do our organizations define wellbeing and quality of life?
What do target communities in the global north or south mean by a quality of life? How can we measure change in wellbeing, and attribute it to our programming?
At the height of the Scottish Independence debate, After Independence offers an in-depth and varied exploration of the possibilities for Scotland, from both pro and anti-independence standpoints.
Drawing together over two dozen leading minds on the subject, After Independence offers a comprehensive and balanced analysis of Scotland’s current and prospective political, economic, social and cultural situation.
Place marketing strategies are becoming increasingly sophisticated with city branding, in particular, developing as an important subfield within this literature (Kotler et al., 2002). City branding campaigns often highlight consumption opportunities which may be seen as a means of promoting recovering from the identity crisis caused by de-industrialization. Indeed, Miles (2010) suggests that the consuming city has become central to urban life to the extent that policy-makers and urban planners focus on consumption at the expense of anything else.
Chapter (with Kathy Hamilton and Lisa Glass) in Motherhoods, Markets and Consumption The Making of Mothers in Contemporary Western Cultures (edited by O’Donohoe, Hogg et al).
This chapter focuses on the experiences of mothers in poverty within the context of UK consumer culture. We follow relative poverty definition, referring to those who lack the resources necessary to participate in the normal customs of society and are unable to obtain goods and services needed for an ‘adequate’ and ‘socially acceptable’ standard of living (Darley and Johnson 1985: 206).
