This paper investigates household income/expenditure inequality using survey data for the United Kingdom from 1937 to 1961. We find little change in inequality for incomes below the top 5 per cent or 10 per cent. This is consistent with the tax unit data. EHR, 2023

This paper studies the effects of air pollution on labour supply by gender in Mexico City. We differentiate between the health, income and policy effect. We find where most female and formal workers are able to reduce their hours of work, informal female workers may have no alternatives. Female informal workers have the highest increase in minutes of work during the peak pollution days. Ongoing work

This paper studies the relationship between household welfare and informality. Assuming income pooling, we propose new measures of household informality. Using panel data for Nigeria, we employ a novel approach assessing household switches in informality portfolios, accounting for selection on unobservables and find it explaining most welfare differences.

This paper examines cross country nutritional differences before WWI using the USCL survey. We find that US households had on average 500 daily calories per capita more than French and Germans households, with the Belgians and British households closer to the USA.

This paper estimates the impact of University reopenings in Scotland in Autumn 2020 on COVID-19 cases in Scottish neighbourhoods. These effects are linked to the group of Universities that started on 14th September, which include large Universities located in the major urban areas. The cases began to rise on 21st September, with 100 extra cases per 100,000 per day, and peaked a week later with 400 additional cases per 100,000 per day, after which they started declining, but persist until the Autumn tightening of coronavirus restrictions bit in November, two months after the restrictions were enacted. This was vetted onto Covid Economics, 2021.

This paper develops a theory of optimal unemployment insurance in matching models. It derives a sufficient-statistic formula for optimal unemployment insurance, which is useful to determine the optimal cyclicality of unemployment insurance.

This paper shows the impact on wages and non wage benefits of joining and leaving a union in Mexico. I find joining (leaving) a union increases (decreases) the probability of being in receipt of legally guaranteed benefits such as bonuses and paid holidays. This suggests that although union density may be in decline, unions still have an important role to play in voicing worker’s preferences with respect to compensation and ensuring that employers comply with the law.

This paper studies the role of unions during local election campaigns in Mexico. We develop a model of union influence and validate this with administrative data . This is ongoing work

This paper revisits Abel-Smith and Townsend’s landmark study of poverty in early post World War 2 Britain using the modern methods

This review analyses the time–series evidence of the effects of changing income inequality on crime for a number of countries and types of crime.

This archive gives some idea of my resting papers, perhaps one day they will see the light of day…