IFS Online News

In this issue

Alistair Darling's first Pre-Budget Report and Comprehensive Spending Review last month cannot have been quite the debut he was hoping for. The CSR spluttered to an almost unnoticed conclusion as many of the decisions had been taken and announced long in advance. Meanwhile, in his first fiscal forecasts, Mr Darling had to concede that the recent problems in the financial sector will hit the Treasury's revenues, but predicted (perhaps optimistically) that the impact would be modest and short-lived. Mr Darling did, however, announce a welcome simplification of capital gains tax. But soon afterwards he appeared to wobble in the face of lobbying by business groups and indicated that he might well be prepared to re-complicate the tax to appease some of the more vocal potential losers.

IFS researchers have been analysing and commenting on all these issues and we shall return to them in our Green Budget in January. Meanwhile, our longer-term work on the tax system continues: the topic studies commissioned by the Mirrlees Review are being finalised, while the editorial team begins work on the core report and recommendations. The Review website is regularly updated and we would welcome your submissions.

Among our recent research publications, a study into the impact of a child's month of birth on educational attainment received a great deal of attention. We have also looked at how partnership transitions relate to changes in mothers' work behaviour; and at the potential to encourage workless lone parents to take up 'mini-jobs' of fewer than 16 hours.

In another recent highlight, Tim Besley, of the Bank of England's monetary policy committee (and a key member of our Mirrlees Review team) gave the 2007 IFS Annual Lecture on "The Political economy of Data". This was timely as the Office for National Statistics prepares for statutory independence. The lecture was chaired by Rachel Lomax, Deputy Governor of the Bank of England, whom we are delighted to welcome as the new President of the IFS. It will be published in a forthcoming edition of Fiscal Studies.

Robert Chote
Director

PBR and CSR 2007

For further information, including presentation slides, please visit our Budget analysis page.

Other recent publications

Working papers Higher education funding reforms in England: the distributional effects and the shifting balance of costs Lorraine Dearden, Emla Fitzsimons, Alissa Goodman and Greg Kaplan, October 2007 What is a public sector pension worth? Richard Disney, Carl Emmerson and Gemma Tetlow, October 2007 Heterogeneity in consumer demands and the income effect: evidence from panel data Mette Christensen, September 2007

Briefing notes and reports The 2007 Comprehensive Spending Review: a challenging spending review? Carl Emmerson and Gemma Tetlow, October 2007 Village economies and the structure of extended family networks Manuela Angelucci, Giacomi De Giorgi, Marcos Rangel and Imran Rasul, September 2007 A survey of UK local government finance Stuart Adam, Carl Emmerson and Anoushka Kenley, July 2007

Research news

cemmap becomes an ESRC research centre

The Centre for Microdata Methods and Practice (cemmap) has received funding from the ESRC for five years, which will allow to us to build upon the centre's success with research, master classes, training courses and workshops.
cemmap website