Economic evaluation has an important role in helping to make decisionsabout the use of scarce resources in an explicit and rational manner, yeteconomic evaluation is not well-developed in many areas of socialwelfare. This paper looks at the reasons for this, focusing on whateconomists could do...

This paper attempts to clarify the significance of reforms to disabilitybenefits proposed by the New Labour government in 1998, by settingthem in the context of the development of disability benefits since theearly 1970s. The first section charts the creation, extension andsubsequent series of...