Events

A Spending Review is a difficult balancing act at the best of times, forcing Chancellors to make difficult choices between competing government departments and services, and trade off higher spending against the tax or borrowing needed to pay for it. This year's Spending Review is likely to be the most difficult to date. At this event, IFS researchers will look ahead to the upcoming Spending Review, and outline the options, opportunities and challenges facing the Chancellor.

The COVID-19 crisis has been a perfect financial storm for councils, pushing up spending and hitting local income streams. This event will explain how the COVID-19 crisis has been affecting local finances and economies, how councils have been responding, and key issues for the next few years as we seek to recover.

As part of the ESRC Festival of Social Science, senior researchers from the Institute for Fiscal Studies and the National Institute of Economic and Social Research will join together to look at how Covid-19 has impacted the public finances, including what we can learn from comparisons with the fallout from the financial crisis and how uncertainty around the economy has affected public spending in the past.

Further and higher education providers face severe resource challenges as a result of the COVID-19 pandemic. At this event, IFS researchers and panellists Philip Augar and Mary Curnock Cook will analyse these challenges. This event coincides with the launch of our 2020 annual report on education spending in England, supported by the Nuffield Foundation.

The proportion of the self-employed saving in a private pension has declined dramatically over the past two decades, leading to continued concerns about their financial preparations for retirement. At this event we will present the findings of new IFS research that has examined this trend.

The IFS Green Budget 2020, in association with Citi and with funding from the Nuffield Foundation, will analyse the huge economic trauma since the March Budget and the much heightened uncertainty over the path of the economy in coming years. The findings from chapters covering the economic and fiscal outlook will be presented at the event, alongside which the book will be launched.

Daron Acemoglu (MIT) will deliver the 2020 Gorman Lectures. The conference will be on Inequality and Automation. This event is free to attend.

In the immediate wake of the pandemic, the government brought in a series of temporary expansions to the welfare system at a cost of £9 billion. At this event, IFS researchers will present the findings of a chapter of the forthcoming Green Budget, discussing the options the government faces.

Providing equal access to healthcare to all solely on the basis of need was a founding principle of the NHS. Despite this, large differences persist in the amount of care used by people living in different areas and with different backgrounds. At this event we will explore the findings of new IFS work outlining what has happened to educational inequalities in health care in England since 2002-03.

Financial Secretary to the Treasury Jesse Norman and leading experts in tax and public opinion will explore the future tax agenda: Which tax changes would best raise revenue without choking off growth? Should government simply raise rates or undertake major structural reforms? Where does public opinion stand on tax rises?

The Chancellor, Rishi Sunak, faces a difficult balancing act at this year’s Spending Review. At this event, IFS researchers will present the findings of two chapters of the forthcoming Green Budget, addressing the big questions around the 2020 Spending Review and ‘levelling up’.

This year's IFS Annual Lecture will be held online and will feature Gus O’Donnell, former Cabinet Secretary to three Prime Ministers and head of the Civil Service, looking at possible lessons from the relatively poor performance of the UK, in responding to the Covid crisis, on both health and economic dimensions.

This conference will bring together leading researchers and policy makers to discuss recent research on taxing personal income and wealth with relevance for developing countries. A unique feature of the conference will be the blending of frontier academic research with the practical experience of policy makers.

Shadow Chancellor Anneliese Dodds and leading experts in tax and public opinion will explore the future tax agenda: Which tax changes would best raise revenue without choking off growth? Should government simply raise rates or undertake major structural reforms? Should Labour set out a radical tax agenda or wait and see?

At this online debate, our expert panel will reflect on what the future holds for capital gains tax. Could CGT be a post-covid cash cow for the Treasury or would higher rates and smaller reliefs lead to lower investment and less revenue?

At this event, we will present new research published by the Social Mobility Commission and carried out by researchers from IFS and the UCL Centre for Education Policy and Equalising Opportunities looking at how earnings outcomes of children from different backgrounds vary across lower-tier local authorities.

This event will analyse how the pandemic is likely to have affected childcare providers' financial health during the lockdown, as well as how they might be affected over the coming months, and whether there is the case for further government intervention.

On Wednesday the Chancellor is due to deliver a Summer Economic Update, where he is expected to announce further measures to help the recovery from the COVID-19 crisis. The following morning, IFS researchers will present their initial analysis of the trade-offs that the Chancellor has made at a free online event

The COVID-19 crisis has exposed growing inequalities and provoked a debate about the rebuilding of public finances. This event will launch a new project investigating the desirability and feasibility of a wealth tax in the UK.

In this special joint webinar, IFS and NIESR will examine the impact of the Covid-19 crisis on the public finances.