James is Professor of Economics at the University of Manchester, Senior Research Fellow at IFS where he is Co-Director of the Centre for the Microeconomic Analysis of Public Policy (CPP), and a founding Co-Principal Investigator of the English Longitudinal Study of Ageing. His research focuses on empirical modelling of individual economic behaviour over the life-cycle. His early work focused on consumption and spending patterns, asset accumulation and pension choices. Subsequently he has worked on broader issues in the economics of ageing, such as health, physical and cognitive functioning and their association with labour market and broader socioeconomic status, and the dynamics of work disability.
Education
PhD Economics, University College London, 1998
MSc Economics, London School of Economics and Political Science, 1990
BSc (First Class Honours) Economics, University of Bristol, 1988
The Economics of Public Spending investigates the extent of government involvement in the economy, details its rational, and traces its historical record.
This briefing note assembles the existing microeconomic evidence and sets out economic arguments relating to the current debate on the ageing population, the timing of retirement, and the adequacy of financial provision for retirement in the UK.
We investigate the possibility that limited participation in asset markets, and the stock market in particular, might explain the lack of correspondence between the sample moments of the intertemporal marginal rate of substitution and asset returns in U.K. data.
The principal of horizontal equity can be interpreted as requiring that households with the same pre-transfer incomes and the same consumption needs should receive the same post-transfer incomes.
In this briefing note we add to the current debate on UK annuity markets by providing some simple descriptive analysis from household survey data. In particular, using data from recent waves of the Family Resources Survey, we consider how the current population of (elderly) annuitants differs from the elderly population at large, and describe differences in the characteristics of the group holding voluntary, as opposed to mandatory annuity policies.
