School funding reform: an empirical analysis of options for a national funding formula

Understand this issue

Public investment: what you need to know

explainer

Everything you wanted to know about UK public investment but were too afraid to ask – including analysis of Labour and Conservative plans.

25 April 2024

The £600 billion problem awaiting the next government

podcast

We speak to David Gauke and Giles Wilkes, two experts who have been at the heart of the spending review process.

25 April 2024

Sure Start achieved its aims, then we threw it away

comment

"We know that poor children grow up with poor life chances. We know how to ameliorate that. The choice is ours." Paul Johnson writes for the Times.

15 April 2024

Policy analysis

The past and future of UK health spending

report

How has health spending changed over the past seven decades? How does the UK compare to other countries? What is the outlook for health spending?

14 May 2024

NHS spending has risen less quickly than was planned at the last election, despite the pandemic and record waiting lists

press release

Despite a pandemic, record waiting lists and growing rates of ill health, real-terms health spending has risen less quickly than was planned.

14 May 2024

The short- and medium-term impacts of Sure Start on educational outcomes

report

We study the medium-run effect of Sure Start on academic outcomes, finding large benefits, particularly for children from disadvantaged backgrounds.

9 April 2024

Academic research

6th World Bank/IFS/ODI Public Finance Conference | Driving Progress: Public Finance and Structural Transformation

conference 26 September 2024

We invite researchers from both academic and policy institutions to submit a paper or an extended abstract of two or more pages by April.

The unintended consequences of infrastructure development

working paper

Focusing on the period from 2005 to 2015 in Peru, I investigate the social costs imposed by poor implementation of public infrastructure.

8 May 2024

Labour market inequality and the changing life cycle profile of male and female wages

working paper

We estimate the distribution of life cycle wages for cohorts of prime-age men and women in the US.

15 April 2024