Research and analysis

The Social Mobility Commission investigated the drivers of socio-economic differences in post-16 course choices and their likely social mobility consequences.

'It is an abiding failure of our system of governance that, with an average tenure of less than two years, secretaries of state barely have time to understand the problems, let alone put in place lasting and effective reform.' Paul Johnson on education reform in The Times.

We investigate differences in the returns to undergraduate degrees by socio-economic background and ethnicity using the Department for Education’s Longitudinal Education Outcomes (LEO) data set.

Today, the Department for Work and Pensions released the latest official statistics on household incomes, poverty, and income inequality. This observation looks at the key findings from those statistics.

Presented "The Liquidity Sensitivity of Healthcare Consumption: Evidence from Social Security Payments" at Johannes Kepler University Linz.

This report seeks to set out the potential effects of the Covid-19 pandemic on inequalities in the UK. The pandemic has affected inequalities in education, training, wages, employment and health, including how these vary by gender, ethnicity, and across generations.

The COVID-19 crisis has both created billions of pounds of new costs for and demands on councils’ budgets and has hit many of their sources of income. We find that across the sector as a whole, the government has largely addressed forecast pressures in 2020-21. However, financial pressures have been, and will continue to be, uneven across councils. As a result, underlying the aggregate picture, many councils still face at least some shortfall this year – particularly among shire districts.

It’s easy enough to see the politics behind Rishi Sunak’s tax increase of choice. Opaque, in the future, jam today, well-hidden pain tomorrow. The scale of the increase, though, makes the economics more concerning. Not only is he unlikely to get as much revenue as he’s banking on, he risks reducing investment levels and hence wages and living standards over the long run.