Relative wages vary considerably across regions of the United Kingdom, with skill-abundant regions exhibiting lower skill premia than skill-scarce regions. This paper shows that the location of economic activity is correlated with the variation in relative wages. U.K. regions with low skill...

The theoretical analysis of tax progressivity has proceeded on the unrealistic assumption that tax liability is never zero, thereby precluding a systematic examination of the progressivity effects of such basic tax reforms as an increase in personal allowances. This paper extends the core...

This paper assesses the accuracy of decomposing income risk into permanent and transitory components using income and consumption data. We develop a specific approximation to the optimal consumption growth rule and use Monte Carlo evidence to show that this approximation can provide a robust...

In this paper a rich and innovative dataset, the International Adult Literacy Survey, is used to examine the impact of functional literacy on earnings. The IALS surveys 12 OECD countries and sub-regions via a consistent questionnaire and includes a number of tests of numeracy and literacy, as...

The fiscal and distributive impacts of three reforms to the social security pension system in the UK are evaluated. All three reforms are designed to increase the retirement age by changing the incentive structure underlying the pension system. The first increases the state pension age by three...

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Double taxation of company dividends is reduced in the UK by a partial imputation system of corporation tax, which was introduced in 1973. Payments of advance corporation tax (ACT) charged on dividend distributions can normally be offset against the firm's corporation tax liability. However, for...

The evaluation of interventions has become a commonly used policy tool, which is frequently adopted to improve the transparency and effectiveness of public policy. However, evaluation methods based on comparing treatment and control groups in small scale trials are not capable of providing a...