IFS Online News

In this issue

During party conference season, there was much debate about tax. Since our last newsletter, the IFS has launched the Mirrlees Review, inspired by the approaching 30th anniversary of the 1978 Meade Report, which was a landmark in the study of tax design and perhaps the most influential output of the IFS to date. This wide-ranging project will bring together leading experts in tax and public economics from around the world to identify the characteristics of a good tax system in the 21st century. Funding for the Review has been secured from the Nuffield Foundation and the ESRC, helping to ensure its independence from commercial and political vested interests.

We are very keen for people to contribute their ideas and comments. A key opportunity will be our 2007 Residential Conference. This will take place from 12th to 14th April 2007 in Cambridge. The conference will be a key milestone in the Mirrlees Review. It will be an opportunity for officials, policymakers, academics, business people, tax practitioners and others to hear about and discuss the preliminary thinking of the Review - and help to shape its development. Book now - places are going fast!

Meanwhile, there has been much else to keep us busy. Alan Auerbach, one of the contributors to the Mirrlees Review, delivered the IFS Annual Lecture, "The Future of Capital Income Taxation", which was well attended and generously hosted by Bloomberg LP. We have also been working on projects with funders such as the Joseph Rowntree Foundation, with whom we launched a report The Poverty Trade-Off: Work incentives and income redistribution in Britain on 4th October 2006.

And we are pleased to announce that the Green Budget 2007 will again be produced in collaboration with Morgan Stanley. It will be launched on 31st January 2007.

Robert Chote
Director

Recent publications

Working papers Financial work incentives in Britain: comparisons over time and between family types Stuart Adam, Mike Brewer and Andrew Shephard, October 2006 Estimating a collective household model with survey data on financial satisfaction Rob Alessie, Thomas F Crossley and Vincent Hildebrand, September 2006 Giving children a better start: preschool attendance and school-age profiles Samuel Berlinski, Sebastian Galiani and Marco Manacorda, September 2006

Briefing notes and reports Options for a UK 'flat tax': some simple simulations Stuart Adam and James Browne, August 2006 Public spending on education in the UK: prepared for the Education and Skills Select Committee Alissa Goodman and Luke Sibieta, July 2006 Poverty and inequality in Britain: 2006 Mike Brewer, Alissa Goodman, Jonathan Shaw and Luke Sibieta, March 2006

Research news

ESRC Centre funding announced for cemmap

The UK Economic and Social Research Council (ESRC) has announced new funding for cemmap (the Centre for Microdata Methods and Practice) which from 2007 becomes an ESRC Research Centre funded for ten years subject to mid-term review in 2012.

cemmap was created through the generous support of the Leverhulme Trust whose funding ceases in 2007. The new ESRC support is at a substantially higher level, and this, with the expanded time horizon, will allow expansion of cemmap's research and training in microdata methods and practice.

To mark cemmap's evolution into a national research centre, we will hold a conference entitled Microeconometrics: Measurement Matters, 28 - 30 June 2007 in London. This conference will explore the interrelationships between measurement, microeconometric methods and practice and knowledge of economic processes.