 Facts and figures about UK taxes, benefits and public spending.
Income distribution, poverty and inequality.
Analysing government fiscal forecasts and tax and spending.
Analysis of the fiscal choices an independent Scotland would face.
Case studies that give a flavour of the areas where IFS research has an impact on society.
Reforming the tax system for the 21st century.
A peer-reviewed quarterly journal publishing articles by academics and practitioners.
|
Type: IFS Briefing Notes Authors: Tom Clark, Mike Elsby and Sarah Love
Press release: Public investment falling for 25 years The Labour government has been at pains to stress the importance of public investment. A large portion of Spending Review 20001 was devoted to explaining why we should care about public investment: it provides the infrastructure that is a prerequisite for improvements in output and growth and is necessary both to supply and to enhance public services. To these, we would add another concern. Cuts in public investment are less immediately noticeable than cuts in current spending, which risks leaving them a soft target during a period of fiscal retrenchment. For example, a decision to delay building a new school or health centre might be expected to provoke less anger than a decision to cut the pay of public sector workers. The risk is that such short-term political pressures may produce public investment that is below the optimal long-term level. Our concern is not just theoretical we know that public investment has shrunk in practice. Public investment recently reached a post-war low as a share of GDP.3 The potential to improve public services depends upon government investment, so it is important that we investigate how we reached this low level of investment and on which public services the axe has fallen most heavily. Search |
 View all IFS Briefing Notes in the series
Recent IFS Briefing Notes
Price-based measures to reduce alcohol consumption
This briefing note considers the effectiveness of the proposed minimum unit price of alcohol.
Better Budgets: making tax policy work
This Briefing Note discusses ways of improving the tax system.
Autumn Statement 2012: More fiscal pain to come?
This briefing not examined the outlook for the public finances in the run-up to the 2012 Autumn Statement.
|
|
|
|
© The Institute for Fiscal Studies
Limited by Guarantee,Registered in England: 954616 7 Ridgmount Street London WC1E 7AE Registered Charity: 258815 VAT no: GB 394 5830 17 Website design by Pynk and Fluffy |
||||||
