Expenditures. Government spending
Research Topic
Language: English
This is a research topic created to provide authors with a place to attach new problem publications.
Research problems linked to this topic
- How effective is spending through financial benefits compared to service provision in supporting different groups of people?
- Where has citizen engagement in policymaking worked well and what key lessons can we take from this?
- What are examples of innovation in policymaking practice? What can we learn from other countries and the private sector?
- How can organisations, with a particular focus on public bodies, most effectively learn lessons from (i) crisis response; and (ii) systemic policy problems; and address them?
- How are the risks of fraud and error in the public sector changing? How can they most effectively be addressed?
- What are the potential costs and benefits of expanding or of contracting the public sector?
- How can organisations best utilise horizon scanning and futures techniques to improve organisational decision-making and performance?
- How can public spending decisions and supporting mechanisms better reflect variability in potential outcomes?
- How is financial management most effectively embedded in decision-making? How can technology help to improve this?
- To what extent does more certainty in future Departmental budgets lead to better outcomes?
- How are the factors affecting financial adequacy in retirement changing over time?
- How do we identify the most effective areas of preventative spending? What do other countries do?
- How can we make better use of analysis to improve our understanding of the impacts (including the long-term impacts) of tax, welfare, and public service spending decisions across the population, including groups with protected characteristics?
- How can we increase productivity within public services and improve outcomes for service users, including through a stronger focus on prevention?
- What funding and powers should we devolve to empower local leaders to provide stronger place-based leadership, and what other reforms are needed to support the sustainability of local government finances? How can this spending be better directed to encourage regional economic growth?
- How can the government better understand the interactions between different areas of spending, for example between early years, health and welfare?
- How can the collection of debts owed to government be fairly and sustainably optimised?
- How have the drivers of welfare spending (e.g. demographics, health, employment rates) changed, and how are they likely to change, over time? How do these interact with other areas of government policy?
- How effective are different business support levers i.e., tax reliefs, grants, and financial instruments, at achieving economic growth and productivity gains? How can we improve how we evaluate business support policies and learn lessons from previous evaluations?
- What roles are there for emerging technology, including AI, in developing, delivering and evaluating public policy? How can public services maximise these opportunities?
- Estimates of the impact of public health taxes , such as the soft drinks industry levy, on social outcomes including health outcomes, in the UK and internationally?
- How effective are tax reliefs at achieving their stated objectives? Are reliefs passed through where that was the intention? How effective are tax reliefs at achieving their stated objectives compared to other types of government support, and how is this assessed?
- What is the role of border adjustment mechanisms in preventing carbon leakage, and on the measurement and verification of embodied emissions in carbon-intensive goods? What are the wider macroeconomic impacts of such mechanisms?
- What is the role of tax in incentivising emissions reductions?
- Which countries have plans in place to maintain or replace tax revenues as sectors transition to net zero? What can the UK learn from international best practice?
- What role do headline tax rates (including the impacts of differing regional tax rates in devolved tax systems), reliefs, grants and tax system stability play in business investment decisions and economic growth, and what is the relative importance of each of these factors?
- What is the impact of the property tax regime on economic growth?
- How do the incentives in the labour tax system influence taxpayer behaviour, and what is the economic cost of any relevant distortions? In particular, what are the latest estimates of fundamental elasticities such as labour demand, labour supply, etc, for different groups?
- How do thresholds and boundaries in the tax system influence taxpayer/business behaviour?
- What does the research literature tell us about an optimal strategy for debt issuance in the UK, and what are the practical implications?
- What are the best ways of assessing and describing the combined impact of monetary and fiscal policy on the economy?
- What is the relationship between government finances and a country’s external finances, based on international experience?
- How much macroeconomic stabilisation is achieved through automatic stabilisers, and what are the key drivers of that dynamic?
- How far does the size and shape of HMG’s balance sheet influence long term interest rates and metrics of fiscal sustainability?
- How might UK fiscal projections be shaped by long term factors (for example climate change and demography)?
- What are the estimates and drivers for the natural rate of interest (r*) and how can these inform fiscal judgements?
- What is the relationship between borrowing and interest rates? And what does the empirical evidence show on the relationship between fiscal policy decisions and gilt yields?
- What is the best approach to making international fiscal comparisons, for instance on debt sustainability?
- What is the relationship between fiscal sustainability and growth?
- What is the potential impact of current and future geopolitical risks on supply chain resilience? Which sectors are most exposed? What actions does the UK need to take, potentially along with international partners, to boost supply chain resilience whilst maintaining the benefits of trade and financial openness given such risks?
- How can we better understand the implications for the economy and public finances of key global and domestic risks identified by the National Risk Register or the OBR, who regularly publish their assessment of fiscal risks and sustainability?
- In the context of rising global debt levels, do advanced economies and emerging markets have the policy space necessary to respond to the fiscal and economic consequences of future shocks, and if not what actions should they take to build this capacity?
- What are the main global trends – and risks – likely to affect global growth, the labour market, and inequality over the next decade?
- What are the main actions at an international level that can promote strong and sustainable medium-term economic growth, in the context of weaker productivity growth in advanced economies since the Global Financial Crisis?
- What are the main policy lessons the UK can learn from other countries in achieving our macroeconomic and fiscal objectives - in particular improving productivity growth and labour force participation, and fiscal sustainability?
- How can we decompose the drivers in trends in trade volumes and prices, split by goods/services, exports/imports and trade with the EU/others?
- What is the impact of the use of large-scale modern industrial policies by major economies including the US, EU and China on the global economy, and on the UK?
- What would be the impact of increases in tariff/trade barriers between the US and other nations like the UK?
- What are the global trends in tariff policy and how can tariff policy contribute to domestic and international objectives?
- How can we value diplomacy and the economic benefits generated by diplomatic activities, both at the multilateral and bilateral level?
- What is the impact and effectiveness of economic sanctions, on sanctions targets and the UK and global economy?
- How will the future development of the European Union, including potential enlargement, affect its decision making, in particular the evolution of the single market, fiscal policies, and trade policies? What impact will this have on non-EU countries?
- How should the international financial institutions (in particular the IMF/MDBs) continue to evolve in the medium term to respond to structural and technological changes, and to best support the diverse needs of their memberships?
- What are the latest changes in flows of multilateral, bilateral and private sector lending to sovereigns and what might be the implications of these changes?
- How are multilateral financial flows (via international institutions) likely to evolve in the medium term, and what are the most pertinent influences (including structural, geographic and technological) for these flows?
- To what extent do trends in global trade and financial flows represent rising protectionism and economic security policies, versus other structural changes in the global economy?
- What risks do excessive leverage, maturity & liquidity mismatches, and concentrated positions currently pose to the financial system? Are there other risks that threaten financial instability?
- How can risks to consumer confidence and broader public sentiment be proactively managed in times of financial market stress?
- What is the relationship between increasing assets under management for defined contribution pension schemes and their level of productive finance investment (venture capital, private markets etc), and how much of this is UK-focused?
- How can green finance and the UK financial sector support the transition to a low carbon economy and what are the risks to financial stability posed by climate change and threats to the natural world?
- How will demographic change affect the financial sector? And what impact will this have on the sectors’ resilience and ability to support the real economy?
- How is the global financial landscape likely to evolve in the context of global economic trends, including international financial infrastructure, cross-border capital flows, and the use of reserve currencies?
- What are the opportunities and risks posed by new technologies to the financial sector? What are the barriers to adoption of new technologies?
- What are the skills needs of a successful, internationally competitive, financial sector?
- What are the key economic benefits to the UK of trade agreements that cover financial services?
- How is the impact on consumers and competition of different market structures in the financial sector best measured?
- What makes the UK financial services sector internationally competitive – including the role played by related professional services – and how can this be measured?
- What role does regulation play in affecting the balance between financial sector size, growth and stability?
- How can the financial sector best support the real economy, both locally in the places financial firms agglomerate, but also across the country? Are there ways in which the sector’s support for the real economy could be improved?
- Why have rates of employer provided training fallen and what economic impact has this had?
- What is the role of human capital in improving growth rates? How important are different types of skills – basic, advanced and managerial, for example – on aggregate or for specific sectors or regions?
- What is the role of the financial sector in driving economic growth both directly and through the real economy? How has this changed over time, may change in future, and how can this be best measured?
- How are resources and employment reallocated across sectors following different kinds of firm exits and what do these mechanisms mean for growth and productivity? What are the real-economy implications of company insolvencies, and what factors influence insolvency outcomes?
- What are the impacts of Automatic Enrolment on outcomes such as wage growth, business investment and other savings levels?
- How do employment costs affect employers’ decisions, including labour demand, pay and broader remuneration, and decisions on how to engage and structure their workforce? How do those effects vary, for example across firms and workers with different characteristics?
- How do financial incentives affect individual labour market decisions and how do these effects vary, for example across people with different characteristics, time and wider economic factors?
- How effective are different (actual or potential) policy interventions in increasing participation of women in the labour market and the representation of women in higher-paid occupations, sectors and levels of seniority?
- How effective are different (actual or potential) employment support policy interventions in supporting people to enter, remain and progress in work? How do those effects vary, for example across individuals with different characteristics (e.g., education, age), or across locations?
- What is the impact of employer and wider labour market regulation on productivity and economic growth?
- What is driving the rise in health-related labour market inactivity? And what policies could be used to tackle this?
- What is the impact of income inequality and poverty on economic growth in the UK?
- What impacts will demographic change have on UK economic growth and what policies can be enacted to mitigate these impacts?
- How can we improve our understanding of the short, medium and long term outlook using novel data sources and modelling techniques?
- What policies could improve the affordability of housing?
- What are the growth effects of spending on health and education?
- How should we identify areas of current UK sectoral and technological strengths? How should this evolve as new sectors emerge?
- How can defence industrial policy and national security R&D deliver positive spillovers for other sectors and support growth in the wider economy?
- What policies and interventions would be most effective in driving regional and local economic growth, and how do these vary across places? How can we improve our understanding of the growth opportunities and barriers to investment across different locations across the UK?
- What is the relationship between trade intensity, capital deepening, economic growth and productivity in different sectors and regions in the UK?
- What are the macroeconomic and fiscal impacts of climate damage in the UK?
- What is the effect of the transition to Net Zero on productivity and growth – and how is this impact influenced by climate and wider policy levers?
- What are the reasons for the slowdown in economic dynamism in the UK (e.g. increasing productivity gaps between leaders and laggards and falling rates of reallocation such as job creation/destruction). What could be done to improve dynamism?
- What are the impacts of input costs (like housing, and energy) on productivity and economic dynamism?
- What role, if any, do the UK’s domestic savings have in supporting or constraining domestic investment, in a small open economy with access to global financial markets?
- What are the potential productivity benefits from an increase in diffusion of technology and from AI? What is needed to boost technology and AI uptake?
- How can public investment crowd-in more private finance?
- What is the optimum balance of public and private financing of infrastructure?
- What are the drivers of investment at the firm level, what is their relative importance and what could UK public policy focus on to increase investment?
- Why has growth slowed down particularly strongly after 2019?
- What explains the longstanding productivity gaps with the UK’s core comparator countries?
- Why have TFP growth and capital deepening reduced in the UK since the Global Financial Crisis?
- What are the productivity and growth impacts of previously announced and enacted policies? How can we improve the analytical frameworks used to assess their impacts?