The rapid growth in income inequality in the UK over the 1980s has excited a good deal of interest and concern. A primary reason for this concern has been the widely- drawn conclusion that the living standards of the very poorest have at best failed to keep pace with the living standards of the...

This article describes the changing patterns in income inequality and real living standards over the last 30 years. Whilst it is well documented that inequality has been rising since 1979,2 there is rather less information on how the pattern of inequality changed in the period up to 1979. This...

In this paper we show how estimates of aggregate spending in the UK would be affected by using grossing weights that take account of the known dimensions of non-representativeness of the Family Expenditure Survey. Currently a uniform weighting scheme is used by the ONS. Having estiiuated a model...

Faced with weak sub-national finances that pose a risk to macroeconomic stability, Mexico's federal government in April 2000 established an innovative incentive framework to bring fiscal discipline to state and municipal governments. That framework is based on two pillars: an explicit...

The most dramatic change in the 1989 Budget was a major reform of the structure of employee's National Insurance contributions (NICs). This was the second occasion on which Mr Lawson had tackled this area, having last altered the system in 1985. In section II of this article we describe briefly...