There are longstanding concerns about the recruitment and retention of teachers in the UK . In recent years there has also been much debate about the extent to which changes to the initial teacher education system have affected the recruitment and retention problem. These concerns are most acute in so called “shortage” subject areas, such as physics .

This paper, written collaboratively by IFS researchers and policy-makers from Ethiopia and Ghana, has multiple and interlinked objectives: (i) to provide an overview of tax incentives and best practices for their design grounded in economic principles, and assess how these apply to the case studies of Ethiopia and Ghana; and (ii) to understand more broadly the causal impacts of tax incentives on economic outcomes in developing countries by reviewing the relevant methodologies to conduct rigorous quantitative analysis and the existing empirical literature. Finally, we discuss the policy implications and avenues for research given the existing literature on the causal impact of tax incentives.

This paper, written collaboratively by IFS researchers and policy-makers from Ethiopia and Ghana, has multiple and interlinked objectives: (i) to provide an overview of tax incentives and best practices for their design grounded in economic principles, and assess how these apply to the case studies of Ethiopia and Ghana; and (ii) to understand more broadly the causal impacts of tax incentives on economic outcomes in developing countries by reviewing the relevant methodologies to conduct rigorous quantitative analysis and the existing empirical literature.

This short briefing note summarises what the newly released HBAI data tell us about how living standards have changed after five years of recovery from the Great Recession, how this differs between different groups, and the implications for inequality and poverty.

TAXBEN is the IFS’s tax and benefit microsimulation model, which calculates the impact of tax and benefit policy on households. It is used heavily in IFS’s work on the impacts of tax and benefit policy. This document gives a high level summary of TAXBEN, covering what policies and effects it does and does not include, and its limitations.

This report argues that ongoing reforms to local government finance risk a growing funding gap for adult social care and conflict with efforts to provide consistent and high-quality care services across the country.

This briefing note provides estimates of the falls in consumer prices that could be expected if the UK leaves the EU's Customs Union and reduce its tariffs. It finds that even if all tariffs were abolished, any reduction in consumer prices would be more than offset by the 2% increase in prices that have resulted from the post-referendum depreciation of sterling.

Causal effects of a policy change on the hazard rates of a duration outcome variable are not identified from a comparison of spells before and after the policy change when there is unobserved heterogeneity in the effects and no model structure is imposed.