 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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 Computation
Computational obstacles remain a great barrier to progress in a range of microdata research areas, including the analysis of semi-parametric structural models, research involving very large datasets, the analysis of models with dynamics and complexity, and the analysis of networks, interactions and equilibrium. One result is that researchers resort to restrictive and misspecified parametric models to get around computational difficulties. While this produces valuable information in many cases, it severely limits the information that can be extracted from data about economic and social processes and often prohibits consideration of important phenomena. Analysis of models involving essential non-linearities and rich forms of heterogeneity requires advances in computational methods.
This strand of the Centre’s research focusses on advancing computational social science. Computational tools will be developed for estimation and testing, for understanding longitudinal data and dynamic models, and for analysing models of networks, of interactions and of equilibrium. Applications will use the most sophisticated computational tools available to expand the frontier of applied microdata research.  Indirect inference is a method to estimate parameters of models where the estimation criterion is difficult or impossible to evaluate directly. The method works by estimating parameters of a set of simpler models.
This work seeks to bridge the gap between two conflicting approaches in empirical macroeconomics, with 'atheoretical' econometric models on one side and “theoretical” models such as dynamic stochastic general equilibrium (DSGE) models on the opposite side.
This work offers a review of forecasting methodologies and empirical applications that are useful for macroeconomists.
We have been pursuing several projects that analyse consumer behaviour in supermarkets.
Unobserved heterogeneity is important in econometrics. People who look alike in terms of education, income, or other variables, make different choices about consumption, and savings. etc. Economic theory provides no guidance as to how unobserved heterogeneity should be modelled nor how important it might be.
A key consideration when studying government policies towards higher education is how do the decisions of teenagers, the decisions of parents, the general economic environment and government policies interact to determine college enrolment decisions.
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