Consumer behaviour

Orazio Attanasio gave a lecture on child development in developing countries as part of Lunch Hour Lecture series at University College London.

These slides were presented to the Office of Fair Trading (OFT).

The UK Government has reformed beer duties and plans to ban the sale of alcohol in England and Wales for less than the total tax liable. These changes are minor: each affects just 1% of off-licence alcohol units sold. In Scotland, the Government has introduced a minimum alcohol pricing Bill which, if introduced across Britain, would directly affect the vast majority of off-licence drinkers and could transfer large sums to alcohol producers and retailers. But it is not clear that a minimum price is particularly well targeted and it may be preferable to increase drink prices by raising taxes and transferring money to the national coffers.

This presentation was delivered in an IFS Seminar

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.

Randomised trials have helped to shape policy in the developing world. Drawing on examples, we argue that it's time the UK made better use of this important tool for evidence-based policymaking.

This presentation was delivered at the 2011 IFS Annual Lecture by Esther Duflo, MIT.

This presentation was given at the European Association for Research in Industrial Economics annual conference in Stockholm on 3rd September 2011.

This presentation was delivered at the Geary Institute, University College Dublin.