This paper takes as its starting point Henry Neuburger’s injunction that taxationmust be seen as a contribution to the maintenance of the welfare state, not as adead-weight burden. It sets recent developments in the UK tax ratio in thecontext of changes in public spending, particularly on...

Since the mid-1990s the term and phenomenon of “social exclusion” has attractedmuch academic attention in the UK, and since 1997 has been an explicit focus ofgovernment policy. In a new book, CASE members examine the debate around themeaning of the term, and the extent and nature of problems...

[...]Our research on seven ‘weak marketcities’ in five European countriessupported by the Joseph RowntreeFoundation was completed and theresulting book, Phoenix Cities by AnnePower, Jörg Plöger and Astrid Winkler,will be published in March 2010.However, we were delighted that...

Microfinance continues to play an ever increasing role in approaches topoverty alleviation around the world. Yet despite the attention paid tomicrofinance, the design of credit contracts for small uncollateralized loansremains a bit of a mystery. From its inception, microfinance generated agreat...

The National Health Insurance Scheme (Rashtriya Swasthya Bima Yojana, RSBY) aims to improve poor people’s access to quality health care in India. This paper looks at the implementation of the scheme in Karnataka, drawing on a large survey of eligible households and interviews with empanelled...

Effective provision of public goods is a key determinant of quality of life. Conventional approaches to poverty measurement look only at private goods, butthis view is too narrow. Access to safe drinking water, sanitation, transport,medical care, and schools is essential both as a direct...

We analyze a simple and tractable model of occupational choice in the presence of credit marketimperfections. We examine the effect of parameters governing technology and transaction costs, andhistory, in terms of the initial wealth distribution, in determining the long-term wealth...

There has been a dramatic change in the division of responsibility betweenthe state and the private sector for the delivery of public goods and services inrecent years with an increasing trend toward contracting out to the private sectorand “public-private partnerships.” This paper analyzes...