Kate Smith
Senior Research Economist
ORCID
Education
2012-2014 MSc. Economics (Distinction), University College London.
2008-2011 BA. Philosophy, Politics, and Economics (First Class Honours), University of Oxford.
Kate is a senior research economist at the IFS and a PhD student at University College London. Her research interests are in public economics and applied microeconometrics. Her recent work studies the design of tax policy, with applications to optimal alcohol and soda taxes, and the taxation of closely held business owners. She joined the IFS in 2011.
Academic outputs
Journal article | Journal of Public Economics
Alcohol consumption is associated with costs to society from anti-social behaviour, crime and public costs of policing and health care. These externalities are non-linear in alcohol consumption, with a small number of heavy drinkers creating the majority of the costs. Governments attempt to reduce ...
Working Paper
CEPR Discussion Paper DP12499
Reports and comment
Briefing note
Since 2007 it has not been permitted to advertise food and drink that is high in fat, salt or sugar during children's television programmes. Evidence from Ofcom suggests that in 2016 children spent 64% of their viewing time watching programmes outside children’s programming. Recent discussion ...
Newspaper article
An anti-obesity drive is about to see a tax introduced on sugary drinks across the UK, while Scotland is set to impose a minimum price on alcohol to target problem drinking. But does making unhealthy products more expensive persuade people to make "better" choices? And what are the trade-offs ...
Presentations
Presentation
40% of the growth in the UK’s workforce since 2008 has come from people working for their own business. IFS researchers are using administrative tax records to learn more about the self-employed and company owner-managers, including their characteristics, how these groups have been changing in ...