Consumer behaviour

The Importance of Product Reformulation Versus Consumer Choice in Improving Diet Quality

Over the Great Recession, UK households reduced real food expenditure. We show that they were able to maintain the number of calories that they purchased, and the nutritional quality of these calories, by adjusting their shopping behaviour.

Large swings in aggregate household sector spending, especially for big-ticket items such as cars and housing, have been a dominant feature of the macroeconomic landscape in the past two decades. Income and wealth inequality increased over the same period, leading some to suggest the two phenomena are interconnected. Indeed, there is supporting evidence for the idea that heterogeneity in economic shocks and spending are connected, most notably in studies using local-area geography as the unit of analysis. The Survey of Consumer Finances (SCF) provides a household-level perspective on changes in wealth, income and spending across different types of families. The SCF confirms that inequality is indeed increasing in recent decades, and the data provide support for the proposition that shocks to income and wealth are indeed related to large swings in spending across and within birth cohorts. However, the economic shocks associated with the Great Recession and changes in spending and debt to income ratios are widespread, and inconsistent with a narrow focus on the experiences and changes in behaviour of particular (especially low- and modest-income) households.

In the recent Budget, the Chancellor introduced a tax on the sugar content of soft drinks, citing concerns about childhood obesity. This tax will be introduced in 2018 and will not apply to fruit juices or milk-based drinks. It has followed calls from various bodies for intervention to reduce people’s sugar consumption. In this briefing note, we provide some descriptive evidence on the main sources of dietary sugar and we lay out some of the economic issues related to the introduction of a tax on sugar.

In this essay, we discuss the importance of consumption inequality in the debate concerning the measurement of disparities in economic well-being.

This paper examine the link between wage and consumption inequality using a life-cycle model incorporating consumption and family labor supply decisions.

This is a response by IFS researchers to the UK Government's consultation 'Pay to Stay: Fairer Rents in Social Housing'.

This briefing note provides an overview of the social housing system. Except where stated otherwise, it focuses on the system in operation in England: many of the institutional and policy details differ in the other nations of the UK, and a full treatment of those is beyond the scope of this survey. However, some of the basic facts about social housing can be provided at a Great Britain or UK level, and we do that where possible (making clear the distinction).

Social housing providers (local authorities and housing associations) fulfill at least three functions: building housing, acting as landlord and delivering subsidised rent levels. This report focuses on the last of these. Specifically, we analyse the consequences for tenants, social housing providers and the exchequer of changing the level of rent charged to tenants in social housing. We do not take a view as to what level is appropriate, or look at wider policy issues in the social housing system.