Government finances and spending

The cuts are unprecendented and they may also be impossible. Is George Osborne right to stick with his programme of cuts?

The presentation was given at The World Bank on June 10th 2011.

This presentation was delivered at the IFS briefing 'Cash by any other name? evidence on labelling from the UK Winter Fuel Payment', 8 June 2011.

This presentation was given to the HMRC & HMT in May 2011

Today the IFS published a detailed examination of what happened to living standards, to poverty and to inequality over Labour's 13 years in office. Amongst other findings, this shows that income inequality rose under Labour. Much of the explanation for this can be found in the fast growth in the incomes of the very richest, and in particular of the incomes of just the top one or two percent. These very high earners have seen their incomes pull away from those of the large majority.

This presentation was delivered on 3rd May 2011 at Bogazici University, Istanbul.

This presentation was delivered at the Royal Economic Society Annual Conference and at the SOLE Conference in April 2011.

On Monday the Government published its long advertised Green Paper on state pension reform. Much press speculation has suggested that this would lead to a flat rate pension of £140 a week for all new pensioners from 2015. But the commitments that the Government have made not to increase public spending on pensions and to honour pension rights that have already been accrued means that introducing such a pension will not be possible on anything like this timetable.

This government, alongside most of its predecessors, is concerned about social mobility. As the coalition government prepares to launch its own strategy for tackling social mobility, recent work at IFS exploring the literature on social mobility has highlighted some important conclusions that the government would be wise to bear in mind.

This presentation was delivered at the Economic and Social Research Institute, Dublin, Ireland on 31st March.

Yesterday, the Government announced the details of a new bursary scheme to replace the Education Maintenance Allowance (EMA). The funding for this will total £180m, of which £15m is reserved for a £1,200 annual grant for vulnerable children. The remaining £165m will form a discretionary fund that schools and colleges will distribute to students deemed to have the greatest need. In this observation, we analyse how this fund could be structured and its potential impact on students.

These slides were delivered at the IFS post-Budget briefing 2011.