In 1999 the UK government made major reforms to the system of child-contingent benefits, including the introduction of Working Families' Tax Credit and an increase in means-tested Income Support for families with children. Between 1999-2003 government spending per-child on these benefits rose by...

This paper uses UK panel data to shed further light on the fall in spending at retirement (the “retirement-consumption puzzle”). It compares the profiles of spending and well-being at retirement for different groups, defined according to whether retirement is voluntary or involuntary. Where...

<p><p>When consumption goods are indivisible, individuals have to hold enough resources to cross a purchasing threshold. If individuals are liquidity constrained, they are unable to borrow to cross that threshold. Instead, we show that such individuals, even if risk averse, may choose to play gamble...</p></p>

This paper uses a survey-based approach to test alternative methods of channeling tax relief to donors - as a tax rebate for the donor or as a matched payment to the receiving charity. On accounting grounds these two are equivalent but, in line with earlier experimental studies, we find that...

There is a widespread belief that peer effects are important in charitable giving, but surprisingly little evidence on how donors respond to their peers in practice. Analysing a unique dataset of donations to online fundraising pages, we show that peer effects are positive and sizeable: a £10...

There is a widespread belief that peer effects are important in charitable giving, but surprisingly little evidence on how donors respond to their peers. We analyse a unique dataset of donations to online fundraising pages to provide evidence on the direction and magnitude of peer effects – we...

A number of papers have suggested that pro-social behaviour in the workplace may be sensitive to the institutional environment, but there is little empirical research that attempts to test this directly using data on worker behaviour. This is the aim of this paper. We show that individuals in...

A number of papers have posited that there is a relationship between institutional structure and pro-social behaviour, in particular donated labour, in the delivery of public services, such as health, social care and education. However, there has been very little empirical research that attempts...

A number of papers have suggested that pro-social behaviour in the workplace may be sensitive to the institutional environment, but there is little empirical research that attempts to test this directly using data on worker behaviour. This is the aim of this paper. We show that individuals in...