For a listing of all publications with their titles.
For more information on any of our publications please contact our Senior Research Fellow James Lloyd on 020 7227 4411 or jlloyd@smf.co.uk
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In The Social Market Economy Revisited, former Chairman of the SMF, Lord Skidelsky, returns to the themes of his seminal 1989 essay that marked launched the Foundation. In the wake of the biggest financial crisis in history, he examines how markets address different types of uncertainty, the role of convention in determining economic behaviour and the limits to the use of econometric analysis in forecasting the future. Read more...
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In the second of a series of essays to mark the 21st anniversary of the Social Market Foundation, John Kay looks back at the triumph of the market economy since the fall of the Berlin Wall. Kay attributes this triumph to the role of the price mechanism, 'markets as a process of discovery', and the diffusion of political and economic power with which markets are associated. Read more...
Reforming the system for funding older people’s long-term care is one of the biggest public policy challenges confronting the UK. Following the 2010 general election, the new Coalition Government announced in its Programme for Government document that it would: “establish a commission on long-term care, to report within a year.
This short brief summarises a roundtable convened by the Social Market Foundation to draw lessons for the new body from previous commissions on both long-term care funding and other policy challenges. Read more...
The UK's debt crisis is mounting. This year's borrowing is likely to be bigger even than last year's record £156bn deficit. With bond markets getting jittery about sovereign debt, the coalition has one shot at cutting the unprecedented deficit. The Government's emergency budget and spending review in the coming months must not shrink from the challenge. If it fails to take decisive measures, the cost of borrowing will balloon, and ultimately much more draconian cuts and taxes will be required. It's time to act. Read more...
The Child Trust Fund, tax-incentivised universal children's savings accounts launched in 2002, was arguably the most innovative social policy implemented under the post-1997 Labour governments. The objectives of the Child Trust Fund range widely across savings policy, financial engagement and asset-based welfare, and are notable for seeking to change the behaviour of both children and their parents. However, the Child Trust Fund today is at a crossroads: it is not achieving its aims as well as was hoped, and it is no longer affordable in its current state. Read more...
The current political debate is largely centred around the balance between public spending cuts and tax rises. But the importance of economic growth in dealing with the crisis in public finances should not be forgotten. The congestion that clogs up the road network is a major impediment to economic recovery as British employees and companies labour under the huge hidden costs of a creaking transport infrastructure. Read more...
Discussion of enabling early access to pension saving has been a feature of UK pension policy debate for some years. However, this discussion has come into sharper focus in light of the global financial crisis, and its potential impact on the attitude of UK households to locking away saving for many years.
This report examines the evidence that current pension rules, associated with the UK ‘annuities deal', deter pension saving. The report also explores in detail the practical considerations and problems that would be confronted by the multiple ‘early access' models of pension saving that have been proposed. Read more...
In a difficult economic climate, there has never been a better time to explore the potential of employee volunteering schemes to furnish the UK workforce with both soft and hardskills. Although employee volunteering schemes have become increasingly widespread in recent years, employers often fail to differentiate between different kinds of volunteering schemes, conflating those that offer one day team-building exercises with those that involve accredited training and longer term career development. The result is that both employers and employees often fail to see the full potential benefits that workplace volunteering can bring. Read more...
Crime costs the UK some £72bn each year. The failure to crack re-offending among prisoners serving short-term sentences is a key driver of these costs. Offenders with short prison terms comprise the large majority of those handed sentences each year, and more than 70% are back behind bars within two years of release. Each time they return to prison, the cost to the criminal justice system is around £60,000 per person. Read more...
The Government introduced tax relief on childcare vouchers in 2005 to provide greater childcare support for parents. In recent months, the role of childcare vouchers has come under intense scrutiny, and the Government has pledged to reduce the tax relief available to higher rate taxpayers from 2011. But the debate around this issue has been characterized by a lack of evidence on who actually uses childcare vouchers.
How do vouchers fit in with other forms of childcare support that are available? How many people claim them in the UK? Are they typically rich professionals,or are voucher users representative of all socio-economic groups? How much does the policy cost the Government and how much will the recently proposed reforms save? All these questions and more are answered in this important and timely evidence paper. Read more...
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Click here for a full list of SMF publications issued prior to 2003. If you would like to purchase a publication or cannot find a publication, please contact Claire Newman or 020 7222 7060.