Taxes and benefits

The key to extending employment and earnings is to focus policy on improving the flows into work for people leaving school and for mothers with young children, and on expanding work among people in their 50s and 60s.

In this paper we set out a theoretical framework for the systematic consideration of “randomisation bias”, and provide what is to our knowledge the first empirical evidence on this form of bias in an actual social experiment, the UK Employment Retention and Advancement (ERA) study.

This paper presents a nonparametric analysis of a common class of intertemporal models of consumer choice that relax consumption independence.

A model of labour supply is developed in which individuals face restrictions on hours choices. Observed hours reflect both the distribution of preferences and the distribution of offers.

Most analysis of the impact of taxes and benefits on households is cross-sectional, with individuals classified as rich or poor, and gains and losses calculated, using a single snapshot of data. In this report, we argue the case for taking a longer-run perspective.

Food purchases differ substantially across countries. We use detailed household level data from the US, France and the UK to (i) document these differences; (ii) estimate a demand system for food and nutrients, and (iii) simulate counterfactual choices if households faced prices and nutritional characteristics from other countries.

In this briefing note, we combine various data sources to provide for the first time a consistent picture on how the size and composition of the public sector workforce has changed over the past 50 years.

We evaluate the impact of a policing experiment that depenalized the possession of small quantities of cannabis in the London borough of Lambeth, on hospital admissions related to illicit drug use.

As Chancellor George Osborne prepares for his keynote statement on fiscal policy and the economy the IFS Green Budget assesses some of the issues he will have to deal with.