Given the emphasis in recent welfare economics, political philosophy andsocial policy on the concept of opportunity, the need to find a way ofdifferentiating between outcomes that are the result of choice and outcomesthat are the results of constraint has become pressing. But all approaches...

In the past decade there has been a minor revolution in how local services are funded.Those delivering the services now have their own budgets. How these budgets arecalculated – how Whitehall pulls the purse strings – are now central issues in social policy.In a new book, CASE members...

Reform of the welfare state is at the centre of political debate. In a new book, CASEmembers analyse changes in social policies over the last twenty-five years, trends inspending, outcomes of policies, and impacts on institutions and families.The stereotypes of both left and right are wrong....

This report presents some of the mainfi ndings from our research in each areaduring 2005: most of our eighth andpart of our ninth year. It also detailsthe other activities of the Centre. Moredetail can be found in the publicationslisted in Appendix 2, which includeCASE’s own discussion paper...

This report summarises presentations and discussion at a conference on ‘New Cycles ofDisadvantage’ organised by CASE on behalf of the Economic and Social Research Councilfor the Treasury and other central government departments. It took place at Stoke RochfordHall near Grantham on 27-28...

Despite prolonged economic growth, poverty has become a more notable andnoted feature of Chinese society. The paper examines three phases ofdevelopment since the foundation of the People’s Republic: the central planningera (1949 –1978); the pro-urban growth model (1978 – 1999); and more...

Economics has always had two connected faces in its Western tradition. In Adam Smith's eighteenth century, as in John Stuart Mill's nineteenth, these might be described as the science of political economy and the art of economic governance. The former aimed to describe the workings of the...