Survey data are widely used to provide indicators of economic activity ahead of the publication of official data. This paper proposes an indicator based on a theoretically consistent procedure for quantifying firm-level survey responses that are ordered and categorical. Firms' survey responses...

This paper assesses the accuracy of individuals’ expectations of their financial circumstances, as reported in the British Household Panel Survey, as predictors of outcomes and identifies what factors influence their reliability. Bivariate ordered probit models, appropriately identified, are...

*There is widespread concern about rising levels of debt prompted by the rising overall levels of debt and the increasing reports of people having difficulties in managing their debts. *Analysis of the data on wealth and borrowing in the British Household Panel Survey in 1995 and 2000 finds that...

We assess the implications of demographic uncertainty for the United Kingdom’s fiscal position. We construct stochastic population projections and then use the framework provided by generational accounts to project government revenues and expenditures. We present stochastic paths for the...

Means testing plays an important role in the UK state pension system. We use a dynamic programming model to consider the long-term behavioural effects of a recent policy reform that reduced the marginal tax rates on private income of means tested retirement benefits from 100% to 40%. Our...

This paper explores the pricing of annuities in a structural overlapping generations model in which the mortality rate of people when old is uncertain. A market clearing price for annuities is established below the fair price. At this price the willingness of old people to pay the young to carry...

This study uses a stylised simulation model to consider potential behavioural responses to the reduction in pension taper rates associated with replacing the Minimum Income Guarantee (MIG) with the Pension Credit (PC). A range of long-run responses to the policy change are identified, summarised...

We use a rational agent model of savings and labour supply to considering how consumer responses to a worsening of labour market opportunities could be influenced by the extent of private sector indebtedness. Our simulations indicate that responses to a negative labour market shock depend...

We assess the implications of demographic uncertainty for the budgetary position in Belgium, Denmark, Finland, Germany, the Netherlands, Spain and the United Kingdom. We evaluate the frequency distribution of the increase in taxes needed to deliver fiscal solvency.

This paper explores the effect of aggregate mortality risk on the pricing of annuities. It uses a two-period OLG model; in the first period, ‘young’ people have a zero probability of death, and in the second period ‘old’ people face an initially unknown risk of death. Old people can...