Our work in this area looks at how consumers respond to price signals and other incentives to change their borrowing, saving and spending behaviour, as well as how different households' welfare is affected by inflation and changes in indirect taxes.
Press reports suggest that the Chancellor is planning an overhaul of the UK’s system of alcohol duties. The current system, which raises about £12 billion a year, is certainly ripe for reform.
We study consumer spending dynamics during one such time, the first infection wave of the COVID-19 pandemic, using household scanner data covering fast-moving consumer goods in the United Kingdom.
MPCs were directly elicited from a representative sample of UK adults in July 2020 using receipt of a hypothetical unanticipated, one-time income payment. Reported MPCs are low, around 11% on average.
Last week, the IFS published research on how the impact of the COVID-19 crisis on consumer spending and behaviour has varied across the country. In a new observation, we consider the implications of this research for local government.
The past nine months have seen huge swings in households’ spending, both in total and across various goods and services. In this briefing note, we analyse the geographical patterns of these changes.
The measures taken to help reduce the spread of COVID-19, resulting from both policy and consumers’ changes in behaviour, have had major impacts on consumer spending patterns. In this briefing note, we explore how consumer spending has evolved, both during lockdown and in the recovery phase since.
In this briefing note, we use comprehensive real-time data on grocery purchases and prices in Great Britain to show how inflation and promotional activity has evolved up until the beginning of August 2020.
We study consumer spending dynamics during the first infection wave of the COVID-19 pandemic using household scanner data covering fast-moving consumer goods in the United Kingdom.
We use real-time scanner data in Great Britain during the COVID-19 pandemic to investigate the drivers of the inflationary spike at the beginning of lockdown and to quantify the impact of high-frequency changes in shopping behaviours and promotions on inflation measurement.