The absence of state capacities to raise revenue and to supportmarkets is a key factor in explaining the persistence of weak states.This paper reports on an on-going project to investigate the incentiveto invest in such capacities. The paper sets out a simple analyticalstructure in which state...

The aim of this paper is to compare academic interpretations of the termsocial exclusion with the understanding of people with direct experienceof the phenomenon. A pre-selected group of residents of deprivedneighbourhoods were asked about various aspects of the concept andtheir responses...

This article, based on two books (Barr and Diamond 2008, forthcoming), sets out a series of principles for pension design rooted in economic theory: pension systems have multiple objectives, analysis should consider the pension system as a whole, analysis should be framed in a second-best...

This Report is about Reforming pensions in China, Chile and elsewhere.

This report is the first policy study of the China Economic Research and AdvisoryProgramme, in which eminent economists from China and abroad have participated. Thereport focuses on the problems faced by China in the reform of its social security system.On the basis of economic principles and...

This paper discusses the contribution made by American social scientists to thestudy of poverty in the past twenty five years. It has three parts. The firstconcentrates on the measurement of poverty and the fact that the US povertyline remained unchanged in that period despite its increasingly...

This paper examines the extent to which the policies towards thewelfare state pursued by the Labour Government in its first fifteenmonths represent a break with those of its Conservativepredecessor and with earlier policies put forward by Labour inopposition. Four key parts of its inheritance...

London is being successfully regenerated at present, yet poverty andsocial exclusion are increasing. The paradox is explained in part by theopenness of the London economy and the lack of basic skills of asubstantial minority of the population. The Government’s policies fortackling social...

This paper develops an approach to studying how bias in favor ofone party due to the pattern of electoral districting affects policy choice.We tie a commonly used measure of electoral bias to the theory of partycompetition and show how this affects party strategy in theory. Theusefulness of the...