Kate Smith
Associate Director
ORCID
Education
2012-2014 MSc. Economics (Distinction), University College London.
2008-2011 BA. Philosophy, Politics, and Economics (First Class Honours), University of Oxford.
Kate is an Associate Director of the IFS and a PhD student at University College London. Her research interests are in public economics and applied microeconometrics, with particular focus on questions relating to the design of an effective tax system. Her recent work studies the taxation of closely held business owners, and optimal alcohol and soft drink taxes.
Academic outputs
Journal article
We evaluate the impact of a price floor for alcohol introduced in Scotland in 2018, using a difference-in-differences strategy with England as a control group.
IFS Working Paper W21/49
We use newly linked tax records to show that the large responses of UK company owner-managers to personal taxes are due to intertemporal income shifting and not to reductions in real business activity.
Reports and comment
Observation
Press reports suggest that the Chancellor is planning an overhaul of the UK’s system of alcohol duties. The current system, which raises about £12 billion a year, is certainly ripe for reform.
Briefing note
The current system of alcohol taxes in the UK is incoherent. The UK’s departure from the European Union offers an opportunity to improve the way that alcohol is taxed, as EU regulations that place constraints on the system of alcohol duties will no longer apply. In this briefing note, we provide ...
Presentations
Presentation
40% of the growth in the UK’s workforce since 2008 has come from people working for their own business. IFS researchers are using administrative tax records to learn more about the self-employed and company owner-managers, including their characteristics, how these groups have been changing in ...