Edward Whitehouse – A Memorial

Edward was something of a legend at IFS – although his tenure was relatively short (1989-94), his intelligence, curiosity and sense of fun – not to say prodigious output of published papers with a variety of colleagues and research affiliates – left an indelible mark.

Ed entered the IFS in 1989 by the then standard route of PPE at the University of Oxford at the age of 21. He was immediately put to work on uploading, coding and validating a new data set: the British Retirement Survey. Within a few days, with typical enthusiasm, he had done all this and started estimating labour supply equations. Of course, much further remedial work was then required, but ultimately the project produced several published outputs including an innovative paper with Costas Meghir in the Journal of Econometrics (1997).

Although involved in a number of projects, Ed’s focus then switched to research on pensions and social security with a number of colleagues. Admittedly not an early riser, he would work long into the early morning on pension simulations which involved modelling the many complexities of the UK pension system, utilizing multiple data sets. Again, many outputs and published papers ensued, arguably initiating an area of research – pension analysis – where IFS has since become the leader in the UK.

From IFS, Ed went briefly to the Financial Times (another well-trodden route of ex-IFS staff) before becoming a consultant to the World Bank on pension reform. At this stage, the World Bank was enamoured of so-called ‘multi-pillared pension systems’ (as in its well-written Averting the Old Age Crisis, 1994), with the UK held to be a prime example of such a programme. So Ed was involved in several missions and reports on this topic, as well as helping direct its Pension Reform Primer. From there, it was a natural step to the OECD where he became Head of Pension Policy Analysis and in large part responsible for the publication of its annual OECD Pensions Policy at a Glance; a comprehensive description and evaluation of OECD countries’ policies which invariably required more than a glance. 

Sadly, ill-health terminated Ed’s employment and intellectual work far too early. A glance at the IFS website will illustrate his productivity but, more than that, his collaborators will testify to his good humour, intelligence and love of life that underpinned these contributions. 

Richard Disney, Research Fellow