Proponents of work search requirements for out-of-work welfare claimants argue they are effective in inducing individuals to work and delivering fiscal savings. In this paper, we provide a much more comprehensive assessment than has been available to date, exploiting a UK reform introducing...

Policy-makers have increasingly turned to 'in-work transfers' to boost incomes among poorer workers and strengthen work incentives. One attraction of these is that labour supply elasticities are typically greatest at the extensive margin. Because in-work transfers are normally subject to...

We build a model of job design under monopsony that yields predictions over the relationship between: (i) the amenity value of non-wage job features; (ii) whether they are costly or profitable to firms; (iii) monopsony power. We analyse the amenity value of schedule flexibility offered in the...

An increasing proportion of people towards the bottom of the UK's income distribution are in a household where someone is in paid work. Working households comprised 37% of those below the official poverty line in 1994-95 and 58% in 2017-18. Much of that increase is due to trends that seem...

In 2019, the employment rate among 25- to 64-year-olds in the UK reached 80% - the highest on record, and considerably higher than the 76% rate recorded shortly before the Great Recession. In this paper, we investigate this growth across several dimensions. We analyse which sectors, demographic...