ESRC Festival of Social Science 2020
The ESRC Festival of Social Science 2020 will run from 9-13 November 2020, with online events organised by institutions across the UK.
As part of the festival, we are holding a series of events throughout the week. All of these events will be free to watch on the IFS website. A listing of our events is below, with links to more information and to register where available:
Monday 9th November
The coronavirus recession: comparisons and lessons from the past
Online | 11:00 - 12:00 (joint event with NIESR)
Senior researchers from the Institute for Fiscal Studies and the National Institute of Economic and Social Research will join together to look at how Covid-19 has impacted the public finances. At this event, they will look at what we can learn from comparisons with the fallout from the financial crisis, as well as how uncertainty around the economy has affected public spending in the past.
COVID-19 and councils: impacts, responses and recovery
Online | 16:00 - 17:15
The event brings together researchers from the Institute for Fiscal Studies and leading experts from local government to examine how the COVID-19 crisis has been affecting local finances and economies, how councils have been responding, and key issues for the next few years as we seek to recover and ‘build back better’. IFS Associate Director David Phillips will present the IFS’s latest research on the topic, which will be followed by a panel of experts, including Nicola Morton, head of finance for LGA, and councillor Richard Watts, leader of Islington Council and chair of the LGA’s Resource’s Board. Finally, there will be time for Q&A.
Tuesday 10th November
The future of public service spending
Online | 14:00 - 15:00
A Spending Review is a difficult balancing act at the best of times, forcing Chancellors to make difficult choices between competing government departments and services, and trade off higher spending against the tax or borrowing needed to pay for it. This year's Spending Review is likely to be the most difficult to date. It comes after a decade of austerity, amidst the most severe economic downturn in centuries, with the nature of the UK's future relationship with the EU still uncertain, and the long-term implications of Covid-19 for our economy and public services not yet known.
Wednesday 11th November
Creating equal opportunities for all: intergenerational mobility in England
Online | 14:00 - 15:00
A socially mobile country provides equal opportunities for everyone, across big cities and small towns, and regardless of whether your parents are rich or poor. This event will look at the state of mobility across England and explore policy options for any government committed to a levelling up agenda. It will discuss the findings of recent IFS research which uses linked data on over half a million children to show how earnings outcomes of children from different backgrounds vary across the country, and will explore the role of education and the labour market in creating opportunities for all.
Thursday 12th November
What is a degree worth? Estimating the returns to undergraduate and postgraduate degrees
Online | 10:00 - 11:00
The share of people staying on in education beyond the age of 18 has grown substantially in the UK since the 1980s. Yet until now, evidence on the effect of these qualifications on subsequent earnings has been limited. The newly available Longitudinal Educational Outcomes (LEO) dataset has changed that, allowing us to produce new evidence on the returns to various different post-18 qualifications. This event will present key findings from three pieces of research published in 2020 by the IFS (and written in collaboration with various external colleagues), including the lifetime returns to undergraduate degrees, the returns to postgraduate degrees, and the returns to alternative post-18 qualifications. We will discuss the implications for policy, highlight areas where future research is needed and have a wider discussion with the audience about the findings.
The impact of covid-19 on the early years childcare market in England
Online | 14:00 - 15:30 (Organised by University of Birmingham, featuring IFS speakers)
Formal childcare providers in the private and voluntary sectors – such as nurseries and childminders – are vital for many parents to work. They are also the major route through which the government’s free early education entitlements are delivered. Covid-19 has the potential to devastate the financial viability of such childcare providers, with potential knock-on consequences for parents’ – especially mothers’ – ability to work, and perhaps also the government’s ability to deliver its free early education entitlements. This event will discuss the challenges facing childcare providers and present new research on the topic.
Speakers include Dr Claire Crawford, IFS Research Fellow and Reader in Economics at the University of Birmingham, and an expert panel.
Generation COVID
Online | 17:00 - 18:00 (Joint event with Discover Economics and the Economics Observatory)
Friday 13th November
Public Economics Lectures
Each year early career economists at IFS deliver a day of public economics talks, aimed at A-level and undergraduate students who have an interest in economics or might want to pursue a career in public policy research. As part of this year’s Festival of Social Science, we will be live streaming a selection of lectures from the series.
These webinars are primarily aimed at final year undergraduates studying economics, but should be useful to anyone interested in the subject. There will be time allowed for Q&A on each topic.
9:00 - 9:50: Income inequality: how and why has it changed, and should governments care?
This lecture will look at what is meant by income inequality and how we can measure it, why governments should care about it, as well as how it has changed over the past decades and why.
10:00 - 10:50: The economics of health inequalities
How unequal is health in the UK and why economists care? This lecture will explain what exactly is meant by health inequality, why it may matter and what could be done to help. We will also discuss how COVID may affect health inequalities in the UK.
11:00 - 11:50: Pensions and savings
Why should people save for retirement and why do governments intervene in people's pension saving decisions? How has the UK pension system changed over time, and how will people's pension saving decisions be affected by Covid-19? This lecture will discuss key themes around pension saving, specifically discussing the UK policy context and how the current economic crisis will test recent policy changes.
14:00 - 14:50: Corporation taxes
15:00 - 15:50: How can we design taxes to discourage harmful behaviour?
This lecture will look at what the rationale for sin taxes is, what economic theory tells us about how we should set them, some of the challenges of doing this in practice and the potential role of economic analysis in helping us to overcome these challenges.
