Ben joined the IFS in 2006 as a PhD scholar and is now a Research Associate, alongside his position as Lecturer at the University of Essex. His research focuses on household circumstances and behaviour. Ben has worked on the determinants of inequality, poverty measurement, and the nature of household income fluctuations.
Education
PhD Economics, University College London, 2012
MSc (Distinction) Economics , University College London, 2005
BA Mathematics and Philosophy (1st Class), University of Oxford, 2000
I characterize how house price shocks affect consumption inequality using a life-cycle model of housing and non-housing consumption with incomplete markets.
We document that households in the UK with extremely low measured income tend to spend much more than those with merely moderately low income. This phenomenon is evident throughout three decades worth of microdata and across different employment states, levels of education and marital statuses.
