After outlining some of the monetary developments associated with Quantitative Easing (QE), we measure the impact of the UK's initial 2009-10 QE Programme on bonds and other assets. First, we use a macro-finance yield curve both to create a counterfactual path for bond yields and to estimate the...

We undertake a variance decomposition of index-linked bond returns for the US, UK and Iceland. In all cases, news about future excess returns is the key driver though only for Icelandic bonds are returns independent of inflation.

We study earnings and income inequality in Britain over the 25 years prior to the COVID-19 pandemic. We focus on the middle 90% of the income distribution, within which the gap between top and bottom in 2019-20 was essentially the same as a quarter-century earlier. We show that this apparent...

We review the effects on the Covid-19 pandemic on inequalities in education, the labour market, household living standards, mental health, and wealth in the UK. The pandemic has pushed up inequalities on several dimensions. School closures particular disrupted the learning of poorer children,...

Using a large-scale panel data set, we trace the evolution of incomes and well-being around the entry into 'solo self-employment' - that is, running a business without employees. We find that solo self-employment is used to self-insure against employment shocks: employment rates fall and poverty...

We examine the living standards and health of working-age disabled people and disability benefits recipients over time in the UK. The UK’s disability benefits system (which is non-means-tested and in which receipt is unrelated to work status) has gone through a significant transformation since...