<p>As a result of the Child Poverty Act (2010), current and future governments are committed to reducing the rate of relative income child poverty in the UK to 10% by 2020-21. This paper looks in detail at the progress made towards this goal under the previous Labour administrations. Direct tax and...</p>

A growing literature on inference in difference-in-differences (DiD) designs with grouped errors has been pessimistic about obtaining hypothesis tests of the correct size, particularly with few groups. We provide Monte Carlo evidence for three points: (i) it is possible to obtain tests of the...

<p><p>Papers in this volume and elsewhere consistently find a strong relationship between children's cognitive abilities and their parents' socio-economic position (SEP). Most studies seeking to explain the paths through which SEP affects cognitive skills suffer from a potentially serious omitted...</p></p>

We document the evolution of average incomes, poverty and inequality over the period of Labour government from 1997 to 2010, comparing these trends with those seen over other periods in recent history. We also relate these changes to Labour’s stated distributional objectives, which we argue...

In 1997, the Labour Party was elected in the UK with few explicitly articulated ideas about social security reforms. This paper reviews the large number of subsequent reforms to social security, and argues that some consistent themes have emerged. A commitment to keep to the tight spending plans...

This study uses the first twelve waves of the British Household Panel Survey covering the period 1991-2002 to investigate the extent of constraints on desired hours of work within jobs and the degree of flexibility of the labour market for a sample of women. Our main findings are as follows....

<p><p><p>This paper, written at the request of the Economic Council of Sweden, presents a tour of welfare reform in the UK since the last change of government, summarising the most important changes in active labour market policies, and in measures intended to strengthen financial incentives to work. It...</p></p></p>

In 1999 the UK government made major reforms to the system of child-contingent benefits, including the introduction of Working Families' Tax Credit and an increase in means-tested Income Support for families with children. Between 1999-2003 government spending per-child on these benefits rose by...