Government finances and spending

This paper outlines the connection between the formal description of the tax system and the marginal rate schedule faced by taxpayers.

This paper analyses the windfall tax on the privatised utilities, introduced in the 1997 Budget.

The European Commission has proposed a fundamental reform of VAT in member states, aimed at establishing a durable, or ӤefinitiveԬ VAT regime, compatible with the requirements of the increasingly integrated European single market. Contrary to the expectations of many commentators, the proposals for the definitive regime have not simply revived the Commission's 1987 proposals for the post-1992 VAT regime. Instead, there are some striking new proposals ֠including a single VAT ӤomicileԠfor each business engaged in Europe-wide trade. This commentary describes the rationale of the Commission's new proposals, and compares it with the current ӴransitionalԠregime and other available alternatives.

This commentary discusses the background to the policy, presents the economic arguments for and against the levy, and examines some of the issues about how the levy might actually operate in practice.

This paper examines the impact of the UK housing benefit system on the financial returns to employment of people in local authority or Housing Association accommodation.

This paper examines the role of individual and household characteristics in explaining patterns of support for higher public spending on seven of the most important public spending programmes including health, education, the police and defence.

Over the last decade there has been a resurgence of interest in the possibility of some measure of devolution to regional governments for at least parts of the United Kingdom.

The generalized method of moments (GMM) estimation technique is discussed for count data models with endogenous regressors.

In this paper we use data on the Norwegian bus transport industry to investigate the effects of different regulatory mechanisms and their economic implications.

Devolution and regional government are once again at the centre of policy debate in Britain. This reports considers the economic issues in designing a system of regional government, and its fiscal implications for the residents of the regions of Britain.

The basic state retirement pension is payable irrespective of means but it is a contributory benefit, not a universal benefit.

Non-domestic rates are a tax that is formally levied on the occupiers of nondomestic property in the United Kingdom.

This report studies the demand for private health insurance in the UK using data from the British Social Attitudes Survey.

The exact measurement of the welfare costs of tax and price reform requires a detailed knowledge of individual preferences. Typically, first-order approximations of welfare costs are calculated avoiding detailed knowledge of substitution effects.