ÌÇÐÄTV

The economic shock of coronavirus has brought perennial questions about government borrowing and spending, NHS funding, social care and welfare, inequality in income and education, and wellbeing, into renewed focus. In a special edition of Advantage magazine published to mark 10 years since the Austerity budget, leading economists reflect on these issues and consider what lessons can be learnt as the UK plans its recovery from the COVID-19 pandemic.

Around £11 billion a year could be raised from an Alternative Minimum Tax rate based on the total amount of income and capital gains that a person reports before applying any deductions or reliefs, according to new research which has gained unprecedented access to the tax records of the UK’s richest individuals.

Trade unions are crucial in advancing workers’ rights, but it is unhelpful to consider their leaders as representatives of the working class as a whole when analysing labour relations and government policies, a new paper from the University of ÌÇÐÄTV Department of Sociology argues.

A new e-book co-edited by award-winning economic historian Professor Mark Harrison of ÌÇÐÄTV Economics and CAGE has been published in the week of the 75th anniversary of Victory in Europe. The book aims to provide new insight into the significant and sometimes overlooked role that economists played in shaping the conduct of the war and its ultimate outcome.

In a further contribution to the debate about how to balance the need to re-open the economy with the need to protect life, ÌÇÐÄTV researchers Andrew Oswald and Nick Powdthavee point out the extreme dangers from any general kind of release from lockdown and present more detailed modelling on the fatality risks faced by different age groups. 

Government reforms to housing benefit introduced in 2011 were intended to save the public purse hundreds of millions. Research from University of ÌÇÐÄTV economists has found that, far from saving money, the change in policy simply shifted burdens to local councils: for every pound central government saved in housing benefit, local authority spending on temporary housing costs went up by 53p.