Richard is a Research Associate at the IFS. He is also a Part-time Professor of Economics at the University of Sussex and Visiting Professor of Economics at University College London. Richard has been a Professor of Economics at the University of Nottingham, at Queen Mary, University of London and at the University of Kent at Canterbury. He is a member of the Senior Salary Review Body, having previously been a member of the NHS Pay Review Body and an advisor to Tom Winsor's investigation of police remuneration. His research interests lie largely in the field of applied microeconomics, notably labour market issues, pensions and public spending.
He is also Co-Director of the IFS's DfID-funded Centre for Tax Analysis in Developing Countries (TAXDEV).
At first sight, the technicalities of social securtiy benefit indexation are a somewhat abstruse topic, suitable only for the journals and handbooks of tax and finance practitioners.
The difficulties encountered in forecasting social security expenditure (significantly underpredicted for much of the 1980s) have long been a source of concern-not least to officials in the DSS.
