Yesterday I made the point that the way in which the IFS presents its estimates as to how progressive or not government measures are risks giving an over-precise impression bearing in mind the data and methodological issues the IFS has acknowledged. That is an issue which comes up again in the answers from the IFS in this post, where the IFS’s position can be summarised as ‘yes, our calculations are not perfect but they are the best that can be reasonably done’. That does mean there is plenty of scope for people to place undue weight on their results given some of the reasons for imperfection:
What allowances do you make in your calculations of the impact of the Budget on the increase in benefits that will follow from the increase in inflation caused by the VAT increase?
When we analyse the impact of changes to taxes and benefits on household incomes and expenditures, we hold constant all other aspects of the economy (for example, the price level, patterns of employment, earnings, pension income, and what people buy). This approach is consistent with that taken by the Treasury when estimating the cost of tax and benefit changes.
The increase in VAT due in January 2011 is highly likely to increase measures of inflation during 2011, and this will almost certainly lead to increases in benefits, tax credits and tax allowances in April 2012 which will be higher than would have been the case had VAT not risen. Some benefit recipients will find that this offsets their losses from the rise in VAT. However, we do not think that it would be helpful to allow for this in our assessment of the impact of changes to taxes and benefits on household incomes, for two main reasons.
First, if we were to allow for this knock-on effect of higher inflation, consistency would require us to allow for other knock-on effects of inflation. For example, some employees will have wages or salaries which are contractually linked to measures of inflation, and some private pension payments and other forms of unearned income are automatically linked to measures of inflation. It is simply not possible for us to model precisely the impact of higher inflation on household incomes, and so the most consistent and transparent approach is to hold constant the price level when analysing the impact of changes to taxes and benefits on household incomes.
Second, it is relatively straightforward to assess the impact of a VAT rise on inflation (though there is some question as to how far firms will pass on the VAT rise to customers in higher prices). But many other tax and benefit reforms could affect inflation in ways that are much harder to assess. Similarly, the VAT increase and other policies could have affect a much wider range of economic outcomes, ranging from employment rates to exchange rates. It would be impossible for us to incorporate all the knock-on economic effects of all reforms into a distributional analysis. Rather than selectively incorporate some effects of some policies, but not others, we – like the Treasury – believe that the most consistent and transparent approach is to estimate the direct – almost “arithmetical” – effect of reforms on different households holding all other aspects of the economy constant. Where possible we often try to complement our distributional analysis with discussion of the possible wider economic effects such policies might have.
What allowances do you make in your calculations of the impact of the Budget or the Spending Review on the impact in changing the number of people out of work on the overall progressive / regressive effect?
The analysis published by us after the June 2010 Budget and the October 2010 Spending Review did not allow for any form of behavioural response to the tax and benefit changes. Assuming no behavioural change is a natural starting point, and is a good approximation to the welfare gain or loss caused by the tax and benefit reforms. This is again consistent with the approach taken by the Treasury in its distributional analysis.
When we analyse the distributional impact of tax and benefit reforms, we often analyse (separately) their effect on financial work incentives as well, to allow people to judge the likely impact on employment (and earnings). We will be doing this in detail when we publish an analysis of the Universal Credit.
But estimating the impact on employment (or other behavioural responses) and incorporating it into the distributional analysis would be much more difficult to do, would require more assumptions and judgement/guesswork, and would be much less transparent. It is also far from clear that incorporating behavioural responses would make the distributional analysis a better guide to the impact on people’s well-being, since (for example) the extra effort of working harder is a cost to the individual as well as bringing the benefit of extra earnings – otherwise they would presumably have chosen to work even before the reform in question.
Check back tomorrow for the final part of this series.
Follow @LibDemVoice on Twitter
Like us on Facebook
Subscribe to our feed
Sign-up for our daily email digest
Did The Archers get George Grundy's sentence right?
The attitudes of Britain's ethnic minority population - The Week in Polls
Alex Salmond 1954-2024
Where's the Labour candidate?
Labour's first 100 days - unravelling the spin
A West End Halloween event! #dundeewestend
Martin Gray
Peter Martin
Steve Trevethan
Peter Davies
John Hills
5 Comments
Mark
It rather sounds as though you should be addressing these questions to the Treasury, not the IFS.
The public aren’t going to blame the IFS for the cuts or hammer the IFS at next years elections.
The students on the streets right now aren’t shouting for the head of the IFS.
But this no doubt serves some purpose as Nick still appears to have a bee in his bonnet about the IFS. So at least he will be pleased.
Thanks, Mark. These are very revealing answers, which give us an insight into the work that the IFS do when they produce these reports.
They give a taste of the limitations that the IFS are working under, and how it is possible for two sets of analysts to come to different conclusions.
I hope the IFS are pleased to have a chance to explain their methodology. Hopefully, answering these questions will help them reflect on ways to produce better reports, and how to better present these reports so as to stimulate more informed public debate.
These posts will only be of interest to some readers of LDV, but they provide information which, as far as I know, is not available elsewhere on the internet. If there is future controversy about IFS analysis, hopefully, those researching these controversies will find these posts in google searches, and find them informative.
” If there is future controversy about IFS analysis, hopefully, those researching these controversies will find these posts in google searches, and find them informative.”
Deliberately or not, you just put your finger on it.
The IFS aren’t going anywhere and when their reports were useful to Nick when he was a Liberal Democrat campaigning as a Liberal Democrat there was no need to question their motives or methodology like they have been here.
Now however, Nick is ensconsed in the Deputy Prime Ministerial office and it’s more than likely that they may come up with yet more conclusions about the poor getting hammered as the cuts begin to hit the vulnerable hardest. That sort of thing is not good for Nicks self image.
Clearly that cannot be allowed to happen to Nick again without recourse to blaming the IFS methodolgy and endless posts requoting the minutia of their methodology from here. The only fly in the ointment is that there will be a great many groups and campaigners concerned with the plight of the poor and they will not be silenced with a few statistical or methodological quibbles.
That the IFS are not perfect is not news, but they are a respected reseach organisation and the wisdom of spinning against them if you don’t like what they say is dubious to say the least. Nick simply does not have the popular support to carry public opinion with him if he launches another tirade against them. No matter what methodoligical minutia are uncovered here it will always be seen as a Politician under pressure attacking a report or conclusion he does not like. The sad thing is that shooting the messenger was also exactly what Brown and Blair kept doing to such deserved scorn here and elsewhere. It is always incredibly counterproductive.
“What allowances do you make in your calculations of the impact of the Budget on the increase in benefits that will follow from the increase in inflation caused by the VAT increase?”
If the IFS think it is impossible to model, and the Treasury didn’t try to model it either, it would be unreasonable to criticise the IFS for excluding this from their calculations.
However, the issue shouldn’t be ignored. Most wages are not linked to inflation. And, in an environment where employees are more worried about job losses than loss of earning power, it’s unlikely that wage increases will compensate for the VAT increase. At least, not in the short term.
So, when considering the effect of the 2.5% VAT rise on those on benefits, and comparing the effect on those in work, those on benefits are likely to lose a lot less from the tax rise.
How much less is difficult to estimate. But if the difference were 1%, that would make noticeable difference to the graphs the IFS have produced about the budget.
“Where possible we often try to complement our distributional analysis with discussion of the possible wider economic effects such policies might have.”
If the inflation rise in benefits could significantly affect how progressive the budget will be, it’s unfortunate that this issue wasn’t discussed in previous briefing papers, and that the IFS press release stated, with little qualification, that the budget was regressive, without acknowleging that factors like this might change that conclusion.
As for the effect on work incentives. I entirely understand the IFS wanting to separate out this important issue, though, again, it would have been helpful if the issue had been referred to in previous papers. It’ll be very interesting to read their analysis of the Universal Credit when it is published.