Reports

This briefing note is provided as evidence to the Work and Pensions Select Committee as to whether childcare could be provided for all parents who need it to help them to work. It looks at the ways in which this could be achieved.

This Briefing Note provides a brief analysis of changes to income inequality since the Labour government came to power in 1997. The most recent data from 2001-02 show that there has been little change in income inequality since 2000-01. An implication of this is that there has been little impact upon the slight upward trend in inequality that has been experienced over Labour's term in office.

An additional 100,000 children were lifted out of poverty on the most commonly cited of the government's relative poverty measures between 2000ְ1 and 2001ְ2. The most recent figures show 3.8 million children (roughly 30 per cent of all children) in Britain in households with income below 60 per cent of the median income after housing costs. Although this means that almost one in three children in Britain live in poverty on this definition, this is the lowest level recorded since 1991. Since the Labour government came to power, the total drop in the numbers in child poverty has been around 500,000.

In this paper we build a general equilibrium OLG model of labor earnings and

We estimate the effect of pension reforms on households' expectations and wealth accumulation decisions.

From 1998 Q4 to 2002 Q4, employment among people aged 50 and over

On 17 February 2003, one of the world's largest and most ambitious plans to tackle urban congestion began, with the introduction of a congestion charge for central London. It is hoped that this õ daily charge for many vehicles entering the Inner Ring Road charging zone will significantly reduce the level of congestion faced by those travelling into and out of central London both by private and by public transport. This Briefing Note aims to provide a guide to the workings of the London congestion charge.

The Green Budget looks at the Chancellor's options for his March Budget.

The Education Maintenance Allowance: Third Year Report

Evaluation of Excellence in Cities Primary Schools Extension

Income inequality continued to rise under the first two years of Labour, and on the latest figures remains higher than before the present Government came to power. This briefing note sets out some basic facts about the distribution of income in Great Britain, and explains the reasons behind some of the main trends. Areas covered include the important changes which have occurred in the labour market, demographics and taxes and benefits.

We investigate the geographic concentration and agglomeration of production activity in the UK at the four-digit industry level using a variety of measures.

This commentary describes the changes to the structure of child-contingent support through the tax and benefit system since 1975. It also presents new results, which were produced to quantify explicitly the amount of government support for families with children, using representative samples of families from over the past three decades. With these data, it is possible to examine whether child-contingent support has become more or less progressive, or more or less slanted towards large families, lone-parents families or families with young children.

This briefing note assembles the existing microeconomic evidence and sets out economic arguments relating to the current debate on the ageing population, the timing of retirement, and the adequacy of financial provision for retirement in the UK.

In August 2002, the government issued a consultation document on further reform to the corporation tax system. Although the consultation addresses three topics capital assets, the schedular system and the distinction between trading and investment companies the major issues revolve around the treatment of assets and losses. This response focuses on these larger issues. It aims to explain the main proposals contained in the consultation, to provide some empirical evidence on the scale of possible changes and to make some comments on the wider policy issues that these proposals raise. At this stage of the consultation process, we retain an open mind on the merits of any final reform package, not least because there is a wide range of alternative packages.

This briefing note looks at the interaction of the tax and benefit system with stakeholder pensions. In particular, it asks how, in the light of recent reforms to the system of state pension provision, the welfare system differentially affects the incentive to invest in a stakeholder scheme for various groups in the population.

The Department for Education and Skills (DfES) has commissioned a longitudinal evaluation