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 gap between rich and poor has increased dramatically over the last 25 years and the incomes of the bottom 10 per cent were no higher in 1991 than in 1967 (see Goodman and Webb (1994b, this issue)). Wages are an important part of household income and the trends in the dispersion of wages...

In this paper, we consider research on links between higher education and family background, focusing particularly on the experiences of two cohorts of individuals born in 1958 and 1970. The findings point to a rise in educational inequality during the period relevant to these two cohorts....

In this paper, we examine links between pupil mobility and pupil and school characteristics at all levels of compulsory schooling in England. We derive measures of mobility from two academic years of the Pupil Level Annual School Census (PLASC) data, a unique national administrative pupil-level...