Taxes and benefits

This paper argues that after five years of the current Labour government, consistent trends in social security policy have emerged

This paper uses a unique data opportunity provided by the British Household Panel Survey to systematically investigate the impact of recall on measured labour market behaviour and to highlight how and to what degree the biases in the reported data may affect the estimation of models of labour market dynamics.

In this commentary, the authors examine the effect of stamp duty on the stock market, on business investment and on merger and acquisition activity. They consider possible threats to the long-run sustainability of stamp duty revenues. The commentary goes on to assess the potential revenue implications of abolition for the government and to examine various means by which the revenues could be recouped. Each of these involves its own potential economic distortions and possible additional administrative costs.

Following the 2002 Budget, this Briefing Note examines some of the Chancellor's changes to business taxation. A number of Budget measures, including the research and development tax credit for large companies and the exemption of capital gains on the sale of subsidiaries, are welcome and should improve the efficiency of the UK's tax system. All of these measures were subject to extensive prior consultation. A number of other measures were not foreshadowed in the Pre-Budget Report. Three of these are examined here - the new 0% rate of corporation tax, the changes to North Sea taxation and the new anti-avoidance measures for stamp duty.

We extend the collective model of household behavior to allow for the existence of public consumption.

In this second article about the New Deal, Michal Myck, Research Economist at the Institute for Fiscal Studies looks in more detail at the impact of a particular programme.

Before the 2001 election the Treasury said that `tax and benefit reforms announced in this Parliament will lift over 1.2 million children out of relative poverty. But official figures released on 11 April show a smaller fall in child poverty, of only 0.5 million since 1996-97. This commentary attempts to explain the discrepancy.

This IFS book (March 2002) reveals that mothers still face substantial hurdles in undertaking paid employment. For those who do manage to work, childcare arrangements are a diverse mixture of carers, cost and quality. Government initiatives to increase the availability of childcare places have a substantial shortfall to address while measures to increase the

e study the effects of risk and uncertainty on education and child labour in developing countries.

We consider the impact of taxation when investors face a discrete choice between two or more mutually exclusive projects.

In the first of two articles looking at the Government’s role in the UK labour market, Michal Myck, of the Institute for Fiscal Studies, explores the rationale for the New Deal.

The Swedish model of active labour market programmes is investigated in relation to some crucial institutional features with two aims: examining how successful it has been in the context of the high unemployment atypically experienced by Sweden in the 1990s and trying to derive some general lessons as to which type of programme works best.

The principal of horizontal equity can be interpreted as requiring that households with the same pre-transfer incomes and the same consumption needs should receive the same post-transfer incomes.

This paper investigates how effective the Swedish labour market programmes have been in improving the opportunities of unemployed individuals over the last decade.

The paper evaluates the differential performance of the six main types of Swedish programmes that were available to adult unemployed workers enTitled to unemployment benefits in the 1990s: labour market training, workplace introduction, work experience placement, relief work, trainee replacement and employment subsidies.

This paper extends behavioural microsimulation modelling so that third round effectsof a policy change can be simulated.

In 2003: the government will introduce new tax credits to provide financial support for children and low-paid workers: the integrated child credit and the employment tax credit. The reform to support for children aims to unify existing payments in a way that provides a guaranteed stream of income for those with children, whether they are working or not. The credit for people in work will provide an income top-up for low earners - something that those without children have not benefited from before. The government has not announced the impact of the reforms on the public finances, but both will cost the exchequer money, so this Commentary considers the likely sums involved. We also examine whether the reforms look like fulfilling their stated aims: making work pay, relieving poverty and creating a new type of state support that is simpler and less intrusive for claimants.

Examining the labour market impact of in-work benefit reform in the United Kingdom.