Government finances and spending

As the Budget approaches, Chancellor George Osborne is getting a great deal of advice about what changes he should make to the tax system. Paul Johnson examines the options in the Financial Times.

Carl Emmerson, Deputy Director at the IFS, explores the options available to the Chancellor in his 2012 Budget.

The Government has an ambition to increase the income tax personal allowance to £10,000 by the end of this Parliament. James Browne investigates how much it would cost the Government to reach this ambition, who would benefit and what the economic impact might be.

Keynote speech given at the annual applied environmental economics conference, March 2012

Presentation given at 'Pensions in Higher Education- annual schemes update', London, 7th March 2012

Talk delivered to parliamentary skills group

This was a seminar given at IFS

This presentation was delivered at the ISER Seminar in March 2012

This presentation was given to the association of NHS charities

This paper was delivered at the Wales Public Services Conference

Paul Johnson argues that we we should not see spending cuts as either the beginning, or the end, of dramatic change in the public sector.

This week, debate over the Government's Welfare Reform Bill has returned to the House of Commons. An element that has grabbed a lot of attention is the proposed benefit cap for working-age households (excluding those claiming Disability Living Allowance or Working Tax Credit), which will be set at £350 per week for childless single people and £500 per week for other households. This is now expected to affect about 67,000 households in Great Britain when implemented in 2013-14, reducing their benefit entitlement by an average of £83 per week and cutting the benefits bill by about £290 million in that year.

This presentation was delivered at the University of Copenhagen