IFS Online News

In this issue

As we prepared to get our teeth into this year’s Budget, we were very sad to hear of the death of Nils Taube, one of the four founders of the Institute and a pioneer of fund management in the UK. As Will Hopper and his fellow founders recall here, Nils found the IFS its second director in the shape of former Treasury minister Dick (now Lord) Taverne. It was Dick who first put IFS on the map and established the reputation that we have been trying to live up to ever since. Nils remained an active supporter of the IFS thereafter, enlivening meetings of our Executive Committee and offering sage advice and encouragement. He will be much missed by all of us.

Robert Chote
Director

Recent publications

Working papers Skill-based technology adoption: firm-level evidence from Brazil and India Rupert Harrison, February 2008 Changing public sector wage differentials in the UK Richard Disney and Amanda Gosling, February 2008 Employment, hours of work and the optimal design of earned income tax credits Richard Blundell and Andrew Shephard, January 2008

Briefing notes and reports The IFS Green Budget: January 2008 Robert Chote, Carl Emmerson, David Miles and Jonathan Shaw, January 2008 Racing away? Income inequality and the evolution of high incomes Mike Brewer, Luke Sibieta and Liam Wren-Lewis, January 2008 The 2007 Comprehensive Spending Review: a challenging spending review? Carl Emmerson and Gemma Tetlow, October 2007

Research news

Racing away? Income inequality and the evolution of high incomes

This Briefing Note provides an analysis of the characteristics of high-income individuals and how their incomes have evolved over time and concludes that the outlook for inequality in Britain may depend more on the outlook for the stock market than on Government tax and benefit policies. Even though the current Government has increased taxes on people with high incomes, this has not prevented them from them racing further away from the average level of living standards across the country. In recent years, it is only in the wake of extended falls in the stock market that the incomes of the richest have fallen.
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