IFS Zooms In: The Economy

Universal Credit is a benefit for working-age people, which combines six existing benefits payments into one payment. Launched in 2013, there are now about 5 million households claiming Universal Credit in the UK. What was the thinking behind this new policy? Has it been successful? And how has COVID affected the trajectory of Universal Credit?This week, Paul speaks with Charlotte Pickles, Director of Reform and a member of the Social Security Advisory Committee, and Tom Waters, Senior Research Economist at IFS and expert on benefits.Support the IFS: https://www.ifs.org.uk/about/membership/individual Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

The Spring 2021 Budget will be the first one since the UK entered a series of lockdowns and Great Britain left the EU's Single Market and Customs Union. The Chancellor has immediate decisions to make over many aspects of the emergency support packages that will otherwise expire soon. In addition there is a clear need for policies to help the economy to recover and to adjust to a post-Covid, post-Brexit world in which we are moving towards Net Zero.In this episode, Paul speaks with IFS Deputy Directors, Carl Emmerson and Helen Miller to explore the kinds of things the Chancellor should be thinking about.Support the IFS: https://www.ifs.org.uk/about/membership/individual Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

By the time the pandemic is over, most children across the UK will have missed over half a year of normal, in-person schooling. That’s likely to be more than 5% of their entire time in school.What are the effects of this lost learning? How is it impacting students and teachers? What can policymakers do to make up for lost learning?Here to discuss are Luke Sibieta, IFS Research Fellow, and Becky Francis, CEO of the Education Endowment Foundation, an independent charity which seeks to improve the educational attainment of the poorest pupils in English schools.Support the IFS: https://www.ifs.org.uk/about/membership/individual Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

The UK has committed to achieving net zero by 2050. To achieve this, nearly all sections of the economy will have to undergo significant changes - from trade and transport, to agriculture and construction. What will this shift look like? How easy will it be to transition? What role will government play in driving net zero?Here to talk through these issues is Chris Stark, Chief Executive of the UK's Climate Change Committee (CCC), the UK’s independent advisory group on tackling climate change.Support the IFS: https://www.ifs.org.uk/about/membership/individual Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

For many, inequality has become the dominant lens through which to understand our society. The coronavirus crisis and political upheavals in the US and UK have shone a harsh light on the increasing inequalities we face, and prove that not everyone is affected equally. In our first episode of 2021, we speak with Nobel Laureate Sir Angus Deaton, Professor of Economics at Princeton University and leading expert on inequality, poverty and welfare. He also chairs Inequality: The IFS Deaton Review, our multi-year study into inequality in the modern world, funded by the Nuffield Foundation.https://www.ifs.org.uk/about/membership/individual Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

It’s now cliché to say that 2020 has been unprecedented, but the COVID-19 crisis has turned the lives of billions of us worldwide upside down. From record-level UK government borrowing and a furlough scheme paying the wages of many workers, to society-wide lockdowns and a seemingly ever-shifting regime of tiers, 2020 is a year like no other.As we say goodbye to 2020 and ready ourselves for 2021, our Director Paul Johnson sits down with Stephanie Flanders, head of Bloomberg Economics and IFS alumna, to make sense of 2020 and see what we can learn from it going into the New Year. Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

As the UK has been dealing with coronavirus pandemic this year, we have also been moving closer to the realities of our new relationship with the European Union, and the end of the Brexit transition period on January 1st, 2021.What does this mean for our future trading relationships with the EU and beyond? What happens if there is No Deal?Joining Paul this week is Professor L. Alan Winters, Professor of Economics and Director of the UK Trade Policy Observatory in the University of Sussex, former Chief Economist of Department for International Development (DFID), and leading contributor to the debate on Brexit.  Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

We often hear about inflation in the news, whether it has gone up or down, and how this impacts the price of everyday goods. But what do economists mean by inflation, how do they measure it, and is inflation the best way of understanding the changes in the price of goods? This week we speak with Martin O'Connell, Deputy Research Director at IFS and author of a recent paper looking at grocery prices during the pandemic, and Ian Crawford, Professor of Economics at Oxford. Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

There has been significant analysis of the furlough scheme in the wake of COVID-19, but far less attention has been paid to the welfare system and how benefits are being affected by the pandemic. The temporary increases to working age benefits implemented this year take total welfare spending to record levels, though the UK’s support system is still thin by international standards. This episode, we speak to Robert Joyce, IFS Deputy Director and Head of our Income, Work and Welfare sector, about how COVID-19 has impacted the UK’s welfare system and what might happen to benefits in future. Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

Government borrowing is never far from the headlines, and in the current crisis, has been a central mechanism for the government to fund its economic support measures. There are many questions around the current level of government debt, whether it is too high, what the long-term implications are and if the government can continue to borrow at its current level. This week we speak with David Miles, Professor at Imperial College London and a former member of the Monetary Policy Committee at the Bank of England, to answer these questions about government debt in the COVID era. Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

The COVID-19 pandemic and the public health measures implemented to contain it will lead to a huge spike in government borrowing this year. This week we released our annual Green Budget report analysing the impact the coronavirus crisis has had across different sectors of the economy and the big decisions confronting the Chancellor. In this episode, we speak with Green Budget chapter authors Ben Nabarro, Economist at Citi, and Carl Emmerson, Deputy Director at IFS, to get a sense of how big government borrowing could get and what the long-term impacts will be.' Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

Older workers are one group of people who are at risk of suffering serious and persistent consequences from the economic turmoil arising from the coronavirus pandemic. Previous research has shown that unemployment shocks have persistent effects on the employment and incomes of older workers. In particular, older individuals who lose their jobs are less likely to secure re-employment, or to find a job on a similar wage to their previous earnings, than younger workers. Being unexpectedly out of work, or on lower wages, in the years leading up to retirement can have obvious negative implications for retirement resources. In this episode, we speak with Rowena Crawford, IFS Associate Director, who has recently published research on how the pandemic is impacting older workers. Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

The COVID pandemic has created huge uncertainly for students returning to university. Have student numbers remained stable in the face of the COVID-19 crisis? Has the A Level results debacle had an impact on admissions? Should students be paying full rates for an online-only experience? How are university finances doing more generally in the face of the coronavirus crisis?In this episode, we speak with Jack Britton, education expert at the IFS, to consider some of the complex questions facing the higher education sector. Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

A socially mobile country provides equal opportunities for everyone, across big cities and small towns, and regardless of whether your parents are rich or poor. Social mobility is never far from the front pages; discussions around education, geographic and intergenerational inequalities and jobs affect everyone. Joining us this week is Lindsey MacMillan, Director of the new Centre for Education Policy and Equalising Opportunities and Anna Vignoles, Professor of Education at the Faculty of Education, University of Cambridge. Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

The coronavirus pandemic has brought new and severe pressures on the UK economy. The challenge now facing Her Majesty’s Treasury will be how to balance the need for increasing revenues through taxes with stimulating much-needed economic growth. This week, our host and IFS Director Paul Johnson speaks to Helen Miller, Deputy Director of the IFS and expert on tax policy, to discuss how the Treasury might raise revenues in the future and how our current tax system can be reformed. Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

The closures of childcare providers to most families during the COVID-19 crisis have underlined the importance of access to childcare, both to support paid work and to help shape young children’s environment. However, the crisis has had severe consequences for the finances of childcare providers, which were already weak in several parts of the sector going into the crisis. Despite a range of government support programmes, many providers lost income during lockdown. In the medium term, a longer-lasting fall in demand for childcare or an increase in costs related to social distancing could seriously hamper financial sustainability in the sector going forward. This week, we speak with Christine Farquharson, Senior Research Economist at IFS and Claire Crawford, Assistant Professor of Economics at the University of Birmingham and IFS Research Fellow. Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

While most things have changed in 2020, the end of the summer will once again see students preparing to go back to school. But this year’s return to school will be unlike any that has come before; for many students, it will have been more than five months since they last attended school in person. Reopening schools has been contentious, but the Department for Education in England – partly motivated by research showing the challenges from home learning and the growing inequalities it has brought – has signalled its determination for all students to return come September. This will be a decisive shift from a period in which schools were open for some year groups, some of the time, with some families choosing to attend while others stayed home. This week we are joined by Angela Donkin, Chief Social Scientist, at the National Foundation For Educational Research (NFER) and Sarah Cattan, Associate Director at IFS in the Education and Skills sector. Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

Recently, students got their A Level results, despite having never sat an exam.How did the government decide what grades to give students? What methodology did they use? How has this affected the distribution of results?This week, we speak with Jack Britton, Associate Director at IFS and expert on education, to get to the bottom of how this year's A Level results were calculated. Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

For the last five months the country has, understandably, been focused on the health and economic consequences of the COVID-19 pandemic. It is already having a huge effect on the economy, on employment and on the public finances. All the while, though, the government has been preparing for the reality of Brexit; not the formal Brexit that happened back in January, but the new trading relationship which will come into force at the end of this year. That too, whatever the final deal, will cause deep and fundamental changes to our economy and to jobs, earnings and incomes.In this episode, we speak to Peter Levell, Senior Research Economist at IFS and expert in the economics of Brexit, to look at how the significant change in our trading relationship with Europe will affect the UK. Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

The COVID-19 crisis has highlighted concerns about inequalities. This is not only about gaps between rich and poor, young and old and between different ethnic groups. It is also about the differences between people living in different places. Even prior to the crisis, there was a sense that the UK is a highly geographically unequal country and that this inequality is increasing. In this episode, we explore these geographical inequalities with David Phillips, Associate Director at IFS and an expert on devolved and local government finance.Inequality: The IFS Deaton Review is funded by the Nuffield Foundation. Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

Recent decades have seen rising wealth-to-income ratios. In England, increases in wealth have been concentrated among older generations. Those born in the 1980s have accumulated no more wealth than those born in the 1970s had done by the same age, but the parents of those born in the 1980s hold 40% more wealth than the parents of those born in the 1970s held at the same age. One consequence is that inherited wealth is on course to be a much more important determinant of lifetime resources for today’s young than it was for previous generations. In this episode we speak to James Banks, Professor of Economics at the University of Manchester and Senior Research Fellow at IFS, and David Sturrock, Senior Research Economist. Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

Last week - in the Summer Economic Update - the Chancellor announced another significant spending package. In normal times, even in times of recession, this package would have been seen as huge. But, of course, these are not normal times and this is no normal recession. Joining us this week to discuss the spending package is Helen Miller, Deputy Director at the IFS and Chris Giles, Economics Editor at the Financial Times. Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

The government has pledged to make 'levelling up' a core part of their policy agenda. To achieve this, they have promised increased investment spending and infrastructure spending. What is investment spending? Why is investment so much lower now than it was 40 or 50 years ago? How does this relate to recent announcements from the government, and the response to the pandemic? Joining us today, Professor Sir Tim Besley, Professor of Economics at LSE and member of the National Infrastructure Commission, and Ben Zaranko, Research Economist at IFS. Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

The effect of the COVID-19 crisis on the economy has been huge. National income fell by 20% in April, to a level last seen in the early 2000s. But the impact of this vast aggregate shock on the finances of different households will vary widely. In this episode, we ask how household incomes were looking before the crisis, how they've been impacted during the lockdown and what we think they could look like in future. Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

We found out that the UK came close to insolvency in March as a result of the turmoil caused by the coronavirus pandemic. Thankfully, the country managed to avoid that. Nevertheless, the COVID-19 pandemic has resulted in unprecedented damage to the UK economy. In this episode, we speak with Benjamin Nabarro, a senior economist at Citi Group and IFS Deputy Director, Carl Emmerson. We ask what the forecast is for the economy, how Brexit will impact that forecast, how the government can help the economy recover and what the long term effects of this crisis might be. Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

The COVID-19 crisis has affected every part of the country – and indeed many other countries. What sets this crisis apart is the many different ways that it is impacting families: while the virus itself is primarily a public health issue, the unprecedented responses it has necessitated mean that this is also very much an economic and a social crisis. This is not to say that it is equally all of these things to all people – some families, and some areas, will be particularly vulnerable to the virus’s health impacts, while others look to be hit particularly hard on economic or social dimensions. We are joined by Imran Rasul, Professor of Economics at University College London and co-director of the Centre for the Microeconomic Analysis of Public Policy at the IFS and Christine Farquharson, Senior Research Economist at the IFS to ask, are people in some parts of England more 'vulnerable' than others? Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

Alongside widespread school closures, lockdown has also resulted in significant challenges for the higher and further education sectors. What will happen with universities and students next year? How will the pandemic affect apprenticeship schemes? What are the likely educational and economic impacts on young people from our response to the virus? In this episode we speak with Anna Vignoles, Professor of Education at the University of Cambridge and Luke Sibieta, Research Fellow at the Institute for Fiscal Studies, specialising in education and skills. Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

In this episode of IFS Zooms In, we'll be looking at the longer term impacts of the current crisis on the nation's health and on the delivery of healthcare. From pent up demand from those unable to attend appointments, to the long-term effects of the recession we have now entered, we will ask how has the pandemic affected our health and healthcare? Joining us are two of the UK’s leading experts on the economics of health and healthcare: Carol Propper, Professor of Economics at Imperial College London, research fellow at the IFS and President of the Royal Economic Society, and James Banks, Professor of Economics at Manchester University and Senior Research Fellow at the IFS. Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

The coronavirus crisis has caused drastic changes to most parents’ work lives and other responsibilities. Millions of adults have lost or are forecast to lose their jobs permanently; many more have stopped work temporarily. Others are newly working from home, while many key workers are experiencing additional pressures and risks in their work. For most parents, school and childcare closures have meant that children are at home, and requiring care, for at least an extra six hours a day. How much time have children spent learning from home? Are mothers and fathers sharing the responsibility equally? How is this affecting families' use of time? In this episode of IFS Zooms In, we ask who is looking after the kids? Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

Governments are starting to ease restrictions to economic activity. The risks of easing these measures too soon, or in misguided ways, are obvious, not only for public health but also for the economy. A world with no lockdown and a pandemic spreading rapidly through the population does not make for a healthy economy. Neither, in all likelihood, does a world in which containment measures have to be repeatedly reinstated after being eased prematurely or in suboptimal ways. In this episode we ask, how can the UK government get people back to work? Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

Wherever we look, it seems that inequalities are shaping people's experience of coronavirus and of the lockdown. Ethnic minorities are significantly more likely to die from coronavirus than their white counterparts. Those in lower-paid jobs are more likely to be in a shut-down industry. The lockdown is widening the gender pay gap. In this episode, we take a close look at how the impact of coronavirus on communities is shaped by ethnic, gender and demographic inequalities. Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

The government has offered unprecedented support to workers since the start of the lockdown in March. Chancellor Rishi Sunak has announced multiple schemes to tackle the economic impacts of the lockdown, including the JRS (Job Retention Scheme) for employees and the SISS (Self-Employment Income Support Scheme) for self-employed workers. In this episode, IFS Director Paul Johnson speaks to Helen Miller, Deputy Director of the IFS and head of our Tax sector, and Xiaowei Xu, a senior research economist in the Income, Work and Welfare sector. We ask about the government intervention, whether the schemes are extensive enough and what role the benefit system can play in plugging any gaps. Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.