More from IFS
Understand this issue

How important is the OBR forecast?
The OBR forecast will underpin the Chancellor’s decisions at the next Spring Forecast.
12 February 2025

What is this government’s ‘theory of growth’? Nobody knows
"Shifting the performance of an entire economy requires a long-term, consistent and persistent direction." Paul Johnson writes for the Times.
20 January 2025

Change in selected departmental capital budgets since 2007–08
The Ministry of Justice saw the biggest cuts to its capital budget over the 2010s, but then has seen the largest relative increases since.
11 February 2025
Policy analysis

Scottish school spending, teachers and pupil numbers
Scotland’s schools are relatively well funded. Falling pupil rolls and workforce planning represent both challenges and opportunities going forwards.
14 February 2025

Planned average annual real-terms growth in the day-to-day justice budget and overall day-to-day public service spending, by Spending Review
At each Spending Review between 1998 and 2015, the justice budget faced either slower rates of growth or greater cuts than other departments.
11 February 2025

Change in justice capital spending and overall departmental capital spending, in real terms, since 2002–03
Capital spending on justice was cut back severely in the 2010s, but has since increased very rapidly.
11 February 2025
Academic research

Tax evasion and the contribution-benefit link: the case of maternity benefits
This paper studies tax evasion and the contribution-benefit link in the context of maternity benefits in Hungary.
18 December 2024

Wage effects of means-tested transfers: Incidence implications of using firms as intermediaries
We show that how countries disburse tax credits matters for economic incidence by exploiting reform to the disbursement of child benefits in Argentina
22 October 2024

The welfare effects of price shocks and household relief packages: Evidence from the European Energy Crisis
How should governments respond to rapid increases in the cost of living driven by shocks to the prices of staple goods?
31 January 2025