Rachel is Research Director of the IFS and Co-Director of the Centre for the Microeconomic Analysis of Public Policy (CPP). She is Professor of Economics at the University of Manchester, a Fellow of the British Academy, a Fellow of the Econometric Society, a Foreign Honorary Member of the American Economic Association and a Research Fellow of CEPR. Rachel won the Birgit Grodal award in 2014, was awarded a CBE in for services to economic policy in 2015 and was made a Dame for services to economic policy and education in 2021. Her research considers the relationship between government policy and economic performance. Her specific interests relate to empirical industrial organisation, the retail food sector, nutrition, innovation, productivity and corporate tax.
Education
PhD Economics, Keele University, 1999
MSc Econometrics and Forecasting, City of London Polytechnic, 1991
BA (Magna cum Laude) Economics, University of Massachussets , 1985
Multinational firms outsourcing or offshoring their operations to developing countries is a problem as old as globalisation. This column looks at the effect on high-skilled labour in the home country. It presents evidence that, on average, when firms start employing high-skilled workers offshore, they also increase the number of this type of worker employed at home.
Yesterday, the Government published a 'call to action' which lays out its strategy for tackling obesity in England. One approach to tackling diet related health problems, which governments are increasingly turning to, is the use of fiscal measures. We look at some of the issues involved in designing a 'fat tax' and under what circumstances such a policy may be effective.
China has experienced unprecedented investment in skills and science, which has resulted in rapid growth in innovative outputs. New evidence suggests that Chinese inventors have the capacity to engage in research at the technology frontier. Such trends have fuelled widespread concerns over Western economies' ability to maintain their dominance in knowledge creation and high skill employment. However, innovation is not a zero-sum game; the success of China need not be at the expense of the West.
In this paper we provide evidence that the growth in Chinese patenting activity has been accompanied by a growth in Chinese inventors creating technologies that are near to the science base.
