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...

This paper examines the extent to which the policies towards thewelfare state pursued by the Labour Government in its first fifteenmonths represent a break with those of its Conservativepredecessor and with earlier policies put forward by Labour inopposition. Four key parts of its inheritance...

The principal aim of Section F of the British Association is to show how economicanalysis can be applied to illuminate important issues of public concern. The themefor the 1997 Section F Meeting of “Equality and Opportunity” surely satisfied thiscriterion. The subject matter is highly...

This report summarises presentations and discussion at a seminar, organised by LSE Housingand CASE, which took place at the London School of Economics on 7th July 1998. The eventwas chaired by Professor Howard Glennerster (LSE and Chairman of STICERD), and thespeakers were Professor William...

This paper analyzes the theoretical underpinnings of high-frequency repayment, a featurein nearly all microfi…nance contracts that has been largely overlooked by theorists. The pervasive belief among practitioners that frequent repayment is critical in achieving high repaymentrates is puzzling....

We study an economy where agents are heterogeneous in terms of observablewealth and unobservable talent. Adverse selection forces creditors to ask forcollateral. We study the two-way interaction between rationing in the creditmarket and the wages offered in the labor market. Both pooling and...

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...