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Centre for the Microeconomic Analysis of Public Policy

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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

News
IFS Research Director Rachel Griffith delivers RES Past President's Address
The Royal Economic Society is holding their annual conference online from Monday 12 to Wednesday 14 April 2021, and as part of the conference Rachel Griffith delivered a lecture on obesity, poverty, and public policy.
Briefing note
Lessons and issues for sub-national government finances post-COVID
This briefing note discusses the impacts of and lessons from the COVID-19 crisis for sub-national government finances, as well as the fiscal roles of and relationships between national, devolved and local government.
Briefing note
Inequalities in education, skills, and incomes in the UK: The implications of the COVID-19 pandemic
This report seeks to set out the potential effects of the Covid-19 pandemic on inequalities in the UK. The pandemic has affected inequalities in education, training, wages, employment and health, including how these vary by gender, ethnicity, and across generations.
IFS Working Paper W21/08
Enforcement of labor regulation and the labor market effects of trade: evidence from Brazil
How does enforcement of labor regulations shape the labor market effects of trade? Does the informal sector introduce greater de facto flexibility, reducing employment losses during bad times?
News
IFS Research Director Rachel Griffith made a Dame in New Year's Honours
Prof Rachel Griffith has been made Dame Commander of the Order of the British Empire in the New Year Honours List for her contribution to economics policy and education.
News
ESRC Centre for the Microeconomic Analysis of Public Policy wins ONS Research Excellence Award
Professor Sir Richard Blundell and the team at the ESRC Centre for the Microeconomic Analysis of Public Policy (CPP) have won the ONS Research Excellence Award for their work on informing policies to tackle inequalities.
News
IFS Research Director Imran Rasul awarded an OBE
Award given for services to Social Sciences
IFS Working Paper W20/26
Inequalities in children’s experiences of home learning during the COVID-19 lockdown in England
This paper combines novel data on the time use, home learning practices and economic circumstances of families with children during the COVID-19 lockdown with pre-lockdown data from the UK Time User Survey to characterise the time use of children and how it changed during lockdown.
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 ...