The idea of having our own trade policy, of cutting tariffs, of signing shiny new trade agreements sounds terribly enticing. The reality, though, is boring. Get a sense of scale, throw in some simple arithmetic and sprinkle a basic understanding of trade and it is obvious that the economic costs of leaving the customs union must outweigh the benefits.
Towards the end of last month, the Department for Work and Pensions published the latest version of Households Below Average Income. Not a publication with a title to set the pulse racing, perhaps, but the most thorough analysis we have of what has been happening to household incomes and inequality. This version brings the story up to the end of the 2016-17 financial year.
Collective models identifying resource shares are promising tools to analyze intra-household welfare and poverty. However, their empirical application has proven difficult in practice as authors contend with large standard errors and unstable estimates. This paper uses a prominent framework to show how a common feature of the structure of these models makes the task so difficult and proposes an empirical strategy to stabilize the estimates.
This presentation was given at an event held to present the highlights from a programme of IFS research, supported by the Joseph Rowntree Foundation, on poverty and low income.
This presentation was given at an event on 6 March held to present the highlights from a programme of IFS research, supported by the Joseph Rowntree Foundation, on poverty and low income.
The nature of low income in the UK has changed radically. The problem of low pay for those in work is increasingly dominating the domestic policy agenda. To mark the end of a programme of research funded by the Joseph Rowntree Foundation, we are setting out and discussing the latest evidence on poverty in the UK and in particular the challenges posed by the rise of in-work poverty. This observation summarises the key points.
This paper summarises a working paper estimating the effects of entering the labour market when the economy is weak on subsequent living standards using consistent long-running household survey data from the UK.
Household incomes have fared very badly in the decade since the financial crisis. In 2015-16 (the latest data available), real median income in the UK was only 3.7% higher than it was at the start of the recession (2007-08) - usually incomes grow by around 2% each year. And new research from the Institute for Fiscal Studies suggests that if the government sticks to planned tax and benefit reforms, and the latest Office for Budget Responsibility's (OBR) macroeconomic forecast is right, that slow growth is likely to continue - averaging just 0.8% per year between 2015-16 and 2021-22.
