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ESRC Centre for the Microeconomic Analysis of Public Policy (CPP) at IFS

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The ESRC has funded a Centre at IFS since 1991, which since 2018 has been recognised as a global centre of excellence and granted official ESRC Research Institute status.

The overarching objectives of the Centre are to:

  • make major scientific progress in understanding how individuals and firms behave and how they react to government policy;
  • have substantial impact on policy in the fields of taxation, labour market, education, welfare, pensions, and public finances;
  • build technical and policy capacity in a new generation of highly-skilled researchers.

The Centre underpins and is fundamental to IFS's research agenda, and is of central importance to our ability to integrate research with policy analysis. ESRC Centre funding enables the IFS to maintain the combination of impartiality, rigour and authority that is essential if we are to continue to achieve wide-ranging impact on policy and to inform the public debate.

Centre funding contributes to Microeconomic Insights, which is a home for accessible summaries of high quality research which informs the public about microeconomic issues that are, or should be, in the public’s eye.

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Journal article | European Economic Review
A new year, a new you? Within-individual variation in food purchases
Laurens Cherchye, Bram De Rock, Rachel Griffith, Martin O'Connell, Kate Smith and Frederic Vermeulen
Test tubes
Journal article | Covid Economics: Vetted and Real-Time Papers
Getting people back into work
Monica Costa Dias, Christine Farquharson, Rachel Griffith, Robert Joyce and Peter Levell
Journal article | Fiscal Studies - Special Issue: 50th Anniversary of IFS
Empirical microeconomics in changing times: a reflection on 50 years of IFS research
James Banks and Richard Blundell

Latest news CPP and highlighted publications

Briefing note
The effects of coronavirus on household finances and financial distress
In this report, we use a novel source of real-time data on households’ finances from Money Dashboard, a budgeting app, to explore the impacts of the crisis so far on earnings, incomes and financial distress, and how they are evolving. We complement this with household survey data to explain and ...
News
Richard Blundell receives 2020 Jacob Mincer Award for lifetime contributions to field of labor economics
Richard Blundell receives 2020 Jacob Mincer Award for lifetime contributions to field of labor economics
Briefing note
A temporary VAT cut could help stimulate the economy, but only if timed correctly
Reports indicate the government is considering a temporary cut in VAT to stimulate consumer demand, possibly targeted at sectors such as tourism and restaurants. Overall the case for a temporary VAT cut now is mixed. It could provide an important fillip to consumer demand if implemented under the ...
Briefing note
The financial risk and resilience of English local authorities in the coronavirus crisis
Local authorities (LAs) across the country are among those on the front line of the coronavirus crisis. But geographical differences in demographic and economic structures make different parts of the country more vulnerable to different effects of the crisis – on health, on families and children, ...
Briefing note
The outlook for the public finances under the long shadow of COVID-19
It is clear that the COVID-19 outbreak – and the public health response to it – will dramatically reduce economic activity in the second quarter of 2020.
Briefing note
The geography of the COVID-19 crisis in England
The COVID-19 crisis has affected every part of the country – and indeed many other countries. What sets this crisis apart is the many different ways that it is impacting families: while the virus itself is primarily a public health issue, the unprecedented responses it has necessitated mean that ...
Briefing note
Inflation spike and falling product variety during the Great Lockdown
The COVID-19 pandemic led many countries to implement social distancing, lockdowns and travel restrictions, which have resulted in a collapse in the world economy unprecedented in peacetime.
Briefing note
Covid-19: the impacts of the pandemic on inequality
Much of the debate about the impacts of the COVID-19 pandemic, our responses to it, and the longer-term legacy that it will leave has quickly become a discussion about various forms of inequality.
News
New Economics Observatory website launched