Laura is a Research Fellow of the IFS. Her current work focuses on tax and social protection policy and programme evaluation in developing countries. She is also a Research Associate with ODI, collaborating with the Development and Public Finance team.
She works closely with and is one of the founders of the Centre for Tax Analysis in Developing Countries (TAXDEV), delivered jointly by IFS and ODI since 2018. This programme aims at generating new research, analysis and in-country analytical capacity in tax and benefit policy and administration in (or of relevance to) lower- and middle-income countries. More recently she has focused on the role of tax and transfers in shaping income and time use gaps between genders across countries with different levels of development. She has also been involved in a range of programme evaluations, including around sanitation and water.
Education
PhD Economics, University College London, 2015
MSc Economics, London School of Economics and Political Science, 2003
BA (summa cum laude) Economics, Universidad de Buenos Aires, 2000
This project provides empirical evidence on firms' demographic characteristics and the extent of specialisation and vertical integration of British firms across industries.
This presentation, for the IFS Public Economics Lectures series, discusses the UK productivity gap, private and social returns to R & D and R & D tax credits.
This IFS briefing note provides some background facts and comments related to the issues raised in an HM Treasury and DTI discussion document, and a final section summarises the discussion that took place at a round table organised by HMT, DTI and IFS.
This paper investigates co-operative research activity by firms using data from the 3rd Community Innovation Survey for four countries, France, Germany, Spain and the UK.
This paper considers the impact that technology has on firms' choices over organisational form, in particular whether to produce inhouse or outsource and offshore services, and firms' decision over the location of activity.
In this Briefing Note, we present new evidence on the UK's innovative performance and provide a summary of government business support programmes aimed at fostering innovative activity and technology transfer.