This paper studies public-debt runs under alternative assumptions on the distribution oftaxes among tax bases, the distribution of debt among classes of taxpayers, and thedistributive preferences of the government. Asymmetries in the distribution of taxes--arising, for example, from income-tax...

[...]This article significantly advances the literature onmortgage prepayments by introducing quantitative measuresof individual homeowner credit histories to the loan-levelanalysis of the factors influencing the probability that a homeownerwill refinance. In addition to credit histories, we...

This paper analyses three options for financing higher education:• Tax funding, as proposed by the Liberal Democrats and, more recently, the Tories.• Tax funding plus upfront charges, as at present.• Tax funding plus deferred charges, as proposed in the White Paper on highereducation...

This paper – a companion to Iain Crawford's and my earlier evidence to the SelectCommittee (Barr, 2002a,b,c,d,e; Crawford, 2002) – offers a strongly supportive assessmentof the strategy in the White Paper (Department for Education and Skills, 2003).[...]

This paper puts forward a strategy for achieving two objectives in higher education –improved access and increased quality – about which there is unanimous agreement.[...]

How do you fund university education? In the UK, the governmentplans to introduce variable fees from 2006, to be paid back after thestudent graduates, but the debate continues worldwide. What isthe best solution, offering what people want but at a realistic price?Nicholas Barr offers his...

Rather than being a handicap, the proposals to introduce top-up fees will prove aboon to students.[...]

Universities need cash, students need support and there are too few working-classentrants. After a two-year extension, Charles Clarke and the class of '73 are all set todeliver answers to these problems. Nicholas Barr offers a guide to how you, theexaminers, should mark their responses.[...]

This paper reviews the achievements of the Labour Government’seducation policy between 1997 and 2001. Tony Blair claimed that hisGovernment would make education a priority. The first part of thepaper reviews the scale of education spending in relation to theeconomy at large and within the...

This paper develops a typology of welfare services and attempts toillustrate its use in clarifying discussions about the privatisation ofwelfare and in analysing changes in expenditure. A third dimension,which concerns the extent of the consumer’s decision-making power andturns on the question...