The national Accident and Emergency (A&E) four-hour waiting time target is once again in the news headlines. Performance against this recently fell to the lowest since records began, with only 79.8% of patients in December 2019 admitted, discharged or transferred to another hospital within 4 hours as opposed to the 95% standard.
We consider two recent suggestions for how to perform an empirically motivated Monte Carlo study to help select a treatment effect estimator under unconfoundedness.
The UK taxes business income at much lower rates than employment income. In this paper we describe the problems caused by that differentiation and assess the main arguments used to defend it. We summarise the Mirrlees Review’s proposals for radical reform that would align tax rates across legal forms while protecting incentives to save and invest. Finally, we consider the obstacles to implementing such a radical reform and suggest an approach to making progress in practice.
The Government of India has taken a positive step in evaluating the workings of the GST. But fundamental reform could bring about a simpler, fairer and more efficient tax system.
The 2010s saw big cuts to councils’ funding and spending, and while these may be over, rising costs and demands will mean further budget pressures. This report looks backwards and forwards at funding levels and reforms.
"Costs, priorities, risks, returns, and value for money all matter" - we need to remember that as the spending pledges roll in this general election, writes Paul Johnson.
In this short briefing note, we look at how earnings have changed over the last 11 years, how that differs when looking at hourly and weekly pay, and how different groups have seen different trends.
Our new research shows that company owner-managers respond to changes in income taxes by adjusting how and when they take money out of their company and not by changing the amount of income they create or how much investment they do.
This paper documents significantly steeper declines in nondurable expenditures at older ages in the United Kingdom compared to the United States, in spite of income paths being similar. Several possible causes are explored, including different employment paths, housing ownership and expenses, levels and paths of health status, number of household members, and out-of-pocket medical expenditures.
