CASEreport

Annual Report 2023

The 2023 CASE Annual Report includes an overview of our Centre’s work, updates from our staff, PhDs, visitors and associates, and summaries of publications and events from last year. It includes a set of articles showcas...Read more...

Journal Article

Longitudinal and Life Course Studies:

Young British adults homeownership circumstances and the role of intergenerational transfers

Ellie Suh

Despite the continuing preference for homeownership, it has become increasingly difficult for young adults to own a home in Britain. House prices have increased faster than real earnings between the mid-1990s and the 201...Read more...

CASEreport

SUMMARY – Living on Different Incomes in London: Can public consensus identify a 'riches line'?

Tania Burchardt, Abigail Davis, Ian Gough, Katharina Hecht, Donald Hirsch, Karen Rowlingson and Kate Summers

There is widespread public and political concern about economic inequality in the UK today but relatively little research exploring people’s opinions about high incomes, wealth and what it means to be rich. This innovati...Read more...

CASEreport

Living on Different Incomes in London: Can public consensus identify a 'riches line'?

Abigail Davis, Katharina Hecht, Tania Burchardt, Ian Gough, Donald Hirsch, Karen Rowlingson and Kate Summers

London is home to vast and visible economic inequality, where the richest 10 per cent own 61 per cent of overall wealth, while at the same time four in ten Londoners do not earn enough for what is considered by the publi...Read more...

Social Policies and Distributional Outcomes Research Paper

Flat-lining or seething beneath the surface? Two decades of changing economic inequality in the UK

Polina Obolenskaya and John Hills

This paper analyses what happened to economic inequalities in the United Kingdom in the two decades from 1995-96. In aggregate, inequality changes were unremarkable, especially by comparison with sharp increases in the ...Read more...

CASEreport

Understanding the Relationship between Poverty and Inequality, Overview report

John Hills, Abigail McKnight, Irene Bucelli, Eleni Karagiannaki, Polly Vizard, Lin Yang, Magali Duque and Marc Rucci

An understanding that poverty and inequality are inextricably linked has given rise to a number of large international organisations setting joint inequality-poverty reduction targets on the basis that poverty cannot be...Read more...

CASEpaper

The net effect of housing-related costs and advantages on the relationship between inequality and poverty

Lin Yang

This paper reviews the evidence of how the welfare state can shape the relationship between economic inequality and poverty through the channels of taxes, transfers and public good provision. In particular, we examine ho...Read more...

Public Economics Programme Discussion Paper

Inheritance Taxation: Redistribution and Predistribution

Frank A Cowell, Chang He and Dirk Van de gaer

It is well known that taxes on the transfer of wealth typically raise very little revenue. However, this does not mean that they are ineffective as tools for redistribution. In this paper we show how important such tax...Read more...

Public Economics Programme Discussion Paper

Condorcet was Wrong, Pareto was Right: Families, Inheritance and Inequality

Frank A Cowell and Dirk Van de gaer

Using a simple model of family decision making we examine the processes by which the wealth distribution changes over the generations, focusing in particular on the division of fortunes through inheritance and the unio...Read more...

CASEpaper

Inequality and the Capability Approach

Tania Burchardt and Rod Hick

Inequality has acquired a newfound prominence in academic and political debate. While scholars working with the capability approach have succeeded in influencing the nature of debate about the conceptualisation and measu...Read more...

Public Economics Programme Discussion Paper

Wealth Inequality in the United States since 1913: Evidence from Capitalized Income Tax Data

Emmanuel Saez and Gabriel Zucman

This paper combines income tax returns with macroeconomic household balance sheets to estimate the distribution of wealth in the United States since 1913. We estimate wealth by capitalizing the incomes reported by indivi...Read more...

SPCC Research Report

The Changing Anatomy of Economic Inequality in London (2007-2013)

Polly Vizard, Polina Obolenskaya, Eleni Karagiannaki, Jack Cunliffe, Stephanie Thomson, Chris Grollman and Ruth Lupton

In this report we examine changing patterns of inequality in London over the period 2007-2013. We examine how the distribution of key economic outcomes - including income and wealth, employment and unemployment, earnings...Read more...

SPCC Research Report

Falling Behind, Getting Ahead: The Changing Structure of Inequality in the UK, 2007-2013

John Hills, Jack Cunliffe, Polina Obolenskaya and Eleni Karagiannaki

This report looks in detail at inequality within the UK, 2007-2013, which groups have gained and lost - comparing men and women, and housing tenure, region, ethnicity, and disability as well as age group. Detailed examin...Read more...

CASEpaper

Piketty in the long run

Frank A Cowell

I examine the idea of 'the long run' in Piketty (2014) and related works. In contrast to simplistic interpretations of long-run models of income- and wealth-distribution Piketty (2014) draws on a rich economic analysis t...Read more...

SPCC Working Paper

The Coalition's Record on Cash Transfers, Poverty and Inequality 2010-2015

John Hills

Presenting his 2010 spending review, George Osborne, the Chancellor, insisted that 'those with the broadest shoulders should bear the greatest burden'. How did the Coalition's benefit and direct tax policies affect the d...Read more...

CASEpaper

Disabled People's Financial Histories: Uncovering the disability wealth-penalty

Abigail McKnight

It is well established that on average disabled people and the households in which they live face greater financial disadvantage in terms of income than their counterparts. What is less well understood is how they fare i...Read more...

CASEpaper

Wealth and Inheritance in Britain from 1896 to the Present

Anthony B. Atkinson

There has been a large rise in the UK ratio of personal wealth to national income. Personal wealth has grown since the 1970s about twice as fast in real terms as national income. Has this rise in the wealth-income ratio ...Read more...

SPCC Research Report

Prosperity, Poverty and Inequality in London 2000/01-2010/11

Ruth Lupton, Polly Vizard, Amanda Fitzgerald, Alex Fenton, Ludovica Gambaro and Jack Cunliffe

This report looks at changes in poverty and inequality in London during the 2000s, with a focus on the impact of recession from 2008. It also considers how a decade has changed the geography of poverty in the Capital....Read more...

SPCC Research Report

Winners and Losers in the Crisis: The Changing Anatomy of Economic Inequality in the UK 2007 - 2010

John Hills, Jack Cunliffe, Ludovica Gambaro, Polina Obolenskaya and Ruth Lupton

Despite being better qualified than previous generations, people in their twenties were worst hit by the crisis in terms of unemployment, pay and incomes....Read more...

SPCC Working Paper

Labour's Record on Cash Transfers, Poverty, Inequality and the Lifecycle 1997 - 2010

John Hills

Cash transfers (benefits and tax credits) are crucial to the way that inequalities develop over time. This paper looks at how Labour’s aims, policies and achievements on poverty and inequality related to its reforms of a...Read more...

CASEpaper

Accounting for cross-country differences in wealth inequality

Frank A Cowell, Eleni Karagiannaki and Abigail McKnight

This paper adopts a counterfactual decomposition analysis to analyse cross-country differences in the size of household wealth and levels of household wealth inequality. The findings of the paper suggest that the biggest...Read more...

CASEpaper

Wealth accumulation in Great Britain 1995-2005: The role of house prices and the life cycle

Francesca Bastagli and John Hills

This paper examines trends in the distribution of household wealth in Great Britain from 1995 to 2005 using the British Household Panel Survey (BHPS). The data show that wealth is very unevenly distributed and reveal a w...Read more...

CASEpaper

Mapping and measuring the distribution of household wealth: A cross-country analysis

Frank A Cowell, Eleni Karagiannaki and Abigail McKnight

In this paper we compare the level, composition and distribution of household wealth in five industrial countries: the UK, US, Italy, Finland and Sweden. We exploit the harmonized data within the Luxembourg Wealth Study,...Read more...

CASEpaper

The effect of parental wealth on children’s outcomes in early adulthood

Eleni Karagiannaki

This paper presents the first UK estimates of the association between parental wealth during adolescence and a range of children’s outcomes in early adulthood. Parental wealth is positively associated with all outcomes e...Read more...

CASEpaper

Inequality among the Wealthy

Frank A Cowell

Using the evidence from the Luxembourg Wealth Study it appears that the distribution of wealth in the UK is considerably less than in Canada, the US or Sweden. But does this result come from an underestimate of inequalit...Read more...

CASEpaper

Estimates of the asset-effect: The search for a causal effect of assets on adult health and employment outcomes

Abigail McKnight

In this paper we seek to determine the effect of assets held in early adult life on later outcomes. We specifically look at wages, employment prospects, general health and Malaise. The identification of an asset-effect t...Read more...

CASEpaper

The impact of inheritance on the distribution of wealth: Evidence from the UK

Eleni Karagiannaki

In this paper we examine how the distribution of wealth has been changing in UK over the period 1995 to 2005 and how the sum of inheritance received between 1996-2004 contributed to the observed trends in wealth accumula...Read more...

CASEpaper

A Wealth Tax Abandoned: The role of the UK Treasury 1974-6

Howard Glennerster

The distribution of wealth is widening in many countries and with it the importance of inherited wealth. In 1974 a Labour Government came to power in the United Kingdom committed to introducing an annual wealth tax. It l...Read more...

CASEpaper

Rrecent trends in the size and the distribution of inherited wealth in the UK

Eleni Karagiannaki

In this paper we document the evolution of the annual flow of inheritances in the UK during the period 1984-2005 and provide estimates for the overall magnitude and the distribution of inherited wealth. Our results indic...Read more...

CASEreport

An Anatomy of Economic Inequality in the UK - Report of the National Equality Panel

John Hills

Britain is an unequal country, more so than many other industrial countries and more so than a generation ago. This is manifest in many ways - most obviously in the gap between those who are well off and those who are le...Read more...

CASEpaper

The Effect of Health on Consumption Decisions in Later Life: Evidence from the UK

Eleni Karagiannaki

The analysis in this paper focuses on the impact of health on the savings and consumption decisions of the elderly. In principle, there are at least five alternative channels through which health may affect consumption a...Read more...

Theoretical Economics Paper

Credit Rationing, Wealth Inequality, and Allocation of Talent

Maitreesh Ghatak, Massimo Morelli and Tomas Sjostrom

We study an economy where agents are heterogeneous in terms of observable wealth and unobservable talent. Adverse selection forces creditors to ask for collateral. We study the two-way interaction between rationing in th...Read more...

International Studies Paper

Japan and Australia's Foreign Policy, 1945-1952

Neville Meaney

Professor Meaney visited the Suntory and Toyota International Centres for Economics and Related Disciplines during the winter months of 1999 and conducted research on the position of Japan in the formulation of Australia...Read more...

DARP Paper

Inheritance and the Distribution of Wealth

Frank A Cowell

The theory of functional equations is used to clarify the relationship between equilibrium distributions of wealth and population parameters such as the distribution of families by size, marriage patterns, tax mechanisms...Read more...

Theoretical Economics Paper

Roads to Equality: Wealth Distribution Dynamics with Public-Private Capital Complementarity

Francisco H.G. Ferreira

This paper proposes a model of wealth distribution dynamics with a capital market imperfection and a production function where public capital is complementary to private capital. A unique invariant steady-state distribut...Read more...

Theoretical Economics Paper

Imperfect Capital Markets and Persistence of Initial Wealth Inequalities

Thomas Piketty

We consider an infinite-horizon inter-generational economy with identical agents differing only in their inherited wealth and with a constant-returns-to-scale technology using capital and labour (called 'effort') and dis...Read more...

International Studies Paper

The British Commonwealth and its Contribution to the Occupation of Japan, 1945-8

W G Beasley, Sir Hugh Cortazzi, Bruce Kirkpatrick, T B Millar and edited by Ian Nish

Preface: The Suntory-Toyota International Centre held an all-day symposium on 'The British Commonwealth and its Contribution to the Occupation of Japan, 1945-8' on 5 July 1991. The three speakers covered the early years ...Read more...