Policies which affect the balance between the public sector's assets and its liabilities have been major concerns of the last few years. Instead of a Public Sector Borrowing Requirement (PSBR), we currently have a Public Sector Debt Repayment (PSDR), and much is being made of the consequent...

This paper examines New Labour's social security and related policies since 1997 in the light of evidence on public attitudes. The list of measures where policies have been in or have come into line with public attitudes is much longer than the list of measures where policies have been out of...

This article explores the value to households in different income groups of benefits from public spending on education, the National Health Service and subsidies to local authority housing. Its results are drawn from secondary analysis of the 1987 General Household Survey (GHS). The paper...

In April 1991 the Government set out its proposals for replacement of the Community Charge (poll tax) by the Council Tax. This paper analyses the structure of the new tax and examines its distributional effects. Section II describes the proposed tax and demonstrates how it is hybrid of poll tax,...