Government finances and spending

This presentation was given at the David Hume Institute on 10 March 2015.

This opinion piece was published in Public Finance magazine online on 6 March 2015 and in the April 2015 print edition.

This presentation was delivered at a seminar at the Economic and Social Research Institute in Dublin on 5 March 2015.

Corporate tax has rarely received as much attention, either from policy makers or the public, as in recent years. The coalition government has enacted a series of policy changes including reductions in the main and small profits rates, changes to capital allowances, the introduction of a preferential rate for patent income (Patent Box), changes to rules concerning the taxation of foreign income, and a raft of anti-avoidance measures. The explicit, and fulfilled, aim was to increase the competitiveness of the UK corporate tax system.

Following David Cameron's announcement that universal pensioner benefits will again be protected, should the Conservative Party win the election, Andrew Hood examines the support given to pensioners in an article published in the Daily Telegraph. Over the past 30 years, pensioner incomes have caught up with those of non-pensioners. The data show very clearly that pensioners are now no more likely to be in poverty than the rest of the population. And after accounting for housing costs, the typical pensioner is now better off than the typical non-pensioner.

In this Observation, we assess the empirical evidence on what has happened to health and social services spending in England and Wales since 2010–11. We find that the relative degree of protection offered to these services does differ between the two countries.

This presentation was delivered to audiences comprised of academics and policymakers at The London School of Economics and Political Science and the Centre for Regional Economic and Social Research, Sheffield, on 21 and 28 January 2015, respectively.

The IFS Green Budget 2015 shows that a future government would have to implement much deeper cuts in social security spending than have so far been suggested to find the £12 billion reduction in spending sought by the Conservatives.

This presentation was given at the launch of the IFS Green Budget 2015.

This presentation was given at the launch of the IFS Green Budget 2015.

This presentation was given at the launch of the IFS Green Budget 2015.