This paper concerns the new economy (alias the knowledge-based economy). I examine the different meanings attached to the new economy term and the evidence surrounding it, concentrating on the upsurge in US productivity growth between 1995 and 2000. I argue that the reports of the death of the...

This paper examines the arguments for changing the ways that UK drug prices are regulated. In the UK, NHS pharmaceutical expenditures on branded drugs, currently worth about £3 billion a year, have been regulated by the Pharmaceutical Price Regulation Scheme (PPRS) since 1978. We argue that, in...

This paper investigates the economic impact of the government’s proposed new UK R&D tax credit. We measure the benefit of the credit by the effect on value added in the short and long runs. This is simulated from existing econometric estimates of the tax-price elasticity of research and...

A long-standing concern surrounding the performance of the UK economy is its perceived failure to maintain the same technological pace as its competitors. Industrial research and development (R&D) expenditure as a proportion of GDP fell during the 1980s at a time when all other G7 countries...

The tax treatment of company dividend payments is an area where corporate taxation interacts with the personal income tax. This interaction raises some awkward issues, such as whether shareholders who are exempt from personal income tax should also be exempt from corporation tax, and if so, then...

This paper analyses the windfall tax on the privatised utilities, introduced in the 1997 Budget. It describes the main arguments put forward for the tax and sets out the details of its scope, scale and method of implementation. The tax is examined against the guidelines of economic efficiency,...