A series of reforms to help low income families with children were introduced in the UK in 1999, including in-work tax credits and welfare-to-work programmes. Lone parents were a key target for these reforms - they comprised 22% of all families by 1998 but 55% of families with children in...

This article uses data from the British Household Panel Survey (BHPS) to shed further light on the fall in consumption at retirement (the 'retirement-consumption puzzle'). Comparing food spending of men retiring involuntarily early (through ill health or redundancy) with spending of men who...

High effective tax rates on work at and around state pension age deter participation. An example is the "earnings test" operating in several OECD countries. The United States abolished its test for the 65+ age group in 2000. The United Kingdom offers a "natural experiment" of this reform, as it...

This mix of state and private pension provision in the United Kingdom provides a rare degree of variation in pension incentives for retirement. Using a sample of individuals from the UK Retirement Survey, the paper models the probability of retirement in terms of the incentives underlying the...