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.
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This paper considers the case for replacing the Carli index in the Retail Prices Index for calculating price changes at the elementary aggregate level. Following Diewert (2012), we go through each of the three approaches used to select appropriate index numbers: the test, stochastic and economic approaches. In each case, we find a few areas where our conclusions differ from Diewert's. Unlike Diewert, we are not as concerned that the Carli fails the time reversibility test, but note that it fails a revised price bouncing test. We find that the stochastic approach is inapplicable at the level of elementary aggregates, where by definition quantity weights for goods are unknown. However, we argue using insights from information theory, that the economic approach can be applied at this level and moreover that it favours the use of the Jevons index. Search |
View all IFS Working Papers in the series
Recent IFS Working Papers
Identifying the drivers of month of birth differences in educational attainment
This paper is the first to apply the principle of maximum entropy to the month of birth problem.
The drivers of month of birth differences in children's cognitive and non-cognitive skills: a regression discontinuity analysis
This paper uses data from a rich UK birth cohort to estimate the differences in cognitive and non-cognitive skills between children born at the start and end of the academic year.
The impact of age within academic year on adult outcomes
We provide the first evidence on whether differences in childhood outcomes translate into differences in the probability of employment, occupation and earnings for adults in the UK.
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