Survey under-coverage of top incomes leads to bias in survey-based estimates of overall income inequality. Using income tax record data in combination with survey data is a potential approach to address the problem; we consider here the UK's pioneering 'SPI adjustment' method that implements...

We discuss methods for calculating multivariate normal probabilities by simulation and two new Stata programs for this purpose: - mdraws - for deriving draws from the standard uniform density using either Halton or pseudo-random sequences, and an egen function - mvnp() - for calculating the...

Assessments of whose income growth is the greatest and whose is the smallest are typically based on comparisons of income changes for income groups (e.g. rich versus poor) or income values (e.g. quantiles). However, income group and quantile composition changes over time because of income...

This paper provides a self-contained introduction to the British Household Panel Survey (BHPS), concentrating on aspects relevant to analysis of the distribution of household income. I discuss BHPS design features and how data on net household income are derived. The BHPS net household income...

We estimate the effect of neighbours' characteristics and prior achievements on teenage students' educational and behavioural outcomes using census data on several cohorts of secondary school students in England. Our research design is based on changes in neighbourhood composition caused...

We study the effects of peers on school achievement, with detailed data on children making the same primary to secondary school transition in consecutive years in England. Our estimates show that secondary school composition, on entry at age 12, affects achievement at age 14, although the effect...

Improving the educational attainment of disadvantaged students in urban schools is a priority for policy worldwide, but existing research is equivocal about the effectiveness of additional funding for achieving this objective. This study exploits anomalies in the spatial dimension of school...

We analyze the dynamics of social assistance benefit (SA) receipt among working-age adults in Britain between 1991 and 2005. The decline in the annual SA receipt rate was driven by a decline in the SA entry rate, rather than by the SA exit rate (which actually declined too). We examine the...

The year-on-year job change rate fell sharply, from 18% in 2005 to around 13% in 2006, according to British Household Panel Survey (BHPS) estimates. This fall coincides with the introduction of dependent interviewing to the BHPS, intended to reduce measurement error and improve consistency....

The generalized entropy class of inequality indices is derived for Generalized Beta of the Second Kind (GB2) income distributions, thereby providing a full range of top-sensitive and bottom-sensitive measures. An examination of British income inequality in 1994/95 and 2004/05 illustrates the...