Wenchao joined the IFS in 2010 as a Research Economist and, after completing her PhD in 2022, is now an IFS Research Associate. She is also Assistant Professor of Economics of the University of Sussex. Her research interests are in the labour market and labour productivity since the great recession.
Education
MSc (Distinction) Economics, University College London, 2019
BA (1st Class) Economics, University of Cambridge, 2010
This paper investigates the financial implications of the higher education funding regime to be introduced in English universities in September 2012. The analysis is based on simulated lifetime earnings profiles among graduates, linked to imputed information on parental incomes and institution and course choices.
The aim of this report is to provide evidence on the impact of local labour market conditions in general - and the national minimum wage (NMW) in particular - on the education and labour market choices of young people in the UK.
Alongside a series of cuts that will reduce welfare spending by £18 billion per year by 2014–15, the UK government announced in November 2010 plans to integrate and simplify means-tested welfare benefits and in-work tax credits for working-age adults into a single programme, to be known as Universal Credit and to be phased in from October 2013.
This report explores what types of firm engage with the apprenticeship programme and if there are characteristics that make them more or less likely to offer apprenticeships.
In this Commentary, we assess the changes to average incomes, inequality and poverty that have occurred since 1997, with a particular focus on the changes that have occurred in the latest year of data (2009-10).
