We investigate life cycle patterns of demand for services from household durables using UK panel data. We take careful account of prices, demographics, labour supply and health. Demand for consumer electronics rises with age, while the demand for household appliances is flat. These findings...

A substantial body of research on the UK's National Minimum Wage (NMW) has concluded that the the NMW has not had a detrimental effect on employment. This research has directly influenced, through the Low Pay Commission, the conduct of policy, including the subsequent introduction of the...

Each year the UK records 25,000 or more excess winter deaths, primarily among the elderly. A key policy response is the “Winter Fuel Payment” (WFP), a labelled but unconditional cash transfer to households with a member above the Female State Pension Age. The WFP has been shown to raise fuel...

The Hamilton method for estimating CPI bias is simple, intuitive, and has been widely adopted. We show that the method conflates CPI bias with variation in cost-of-living across income levels. Assuming a single price index across the income distribution is inconsistent with the downward sloping...

Identifying the effect of differential taxation on portfolio allocation requires exogenous variation in marginal tax rates. Marginal tax rates vary with income, but income surely affects portfolio choice directly. In systems of individual taxation - like Canada's - couples with the same...

Prices of real and financial assets fell substantially in the UK during 2008-09. The fourth wave of the English Longitudinal Study of Ageing (ELSA) was in the field throughout this 'financial crisis'. We use these data and earlier ELSA waves first to document the effect of the crisis on the...

The combination of credit constraints and indivisible consumption goods may induce some riskaverse individuals to play lotteries to have a chance of crossing a purchasing threshold. One implication of this is that income effects for individuals who choose to play lotteries are likely to be...