Two new pieces of research on higher education funding are published today. These reports have been funded by the Nuffield Foundation and will be presented as part of the ESRC’s Festival of Social Science on Friday 9th November.

Article published in 'Britain in 2013 - the nation in focus'

This article discusses the current system of motoring taxes in teh UK and recommends a move towards a system of road pricing.

Presentation given at the CML on Wednesday 7th November 2012

News analysis published in Tax Notes International, 5 November, 2012

In October 2012, the ONS announced a consultation on whether the statistical methods used to calculate the Retail Prices Index (RPI) should be changed to bring them closer in line to those used in the Consumer Prices Index (CPI). Previous IFS work has looked at how inflation rates varied across different households, using survey data on household expenditure to calculate RPI-based measures of household-specific inflation. This paper analyses whether CPI-based measures give similar results and the reasons behind any differences.

Presentation given at Oxford Economics, UK Outlook Conference, London, 1 November 2012

This paper investigates whether number of children and, among parents, having a daughter is associated with older people's likelihood of at least weekly face-to-face social contact and later receipt of help if needed.