Arun Advani

'How can we fund public services?' with
@IPPR

🕘9am, Tuesday
📍Museum of Liverpool

👉 @dantomlinson.bsky.social
👉 @yuanfenyang.bsky.social
👉 @andy-summers.bsky.social
👉 @guardianheather.bsky.social
👉 Chair: @carsjung.bsky.social

'Can we design a tax system which taxes the wealthy and is pro-growth?' with CIOT.

🕛 12pm, Tuesday
📍Albert 3, Hilton Hotel

👉 Lloyd Hatton MP
👉 @gemmatetlow.bsky.social
👉 Emma Chamberlain @pumpcourtchambers.bsky.social
👉 @arunadvani.bsky.social
👉 Chair: Nichola Ross Martin

NEW: Removing the National Insurance (NICs) tax break for partnerships would raise £1.9bn while improving productivity.

Here are some of our key findings 🧵

centax.org.uk/policy-repor...

📣 Last couple of days:

We are recruiting:
🧑‍💼Research Economist, working on a mix of academic & policy research
⏰full-time from summer
🎯London-based
🙋Ideal for someone looking for an econ pre-doc or a career in policy-focused research
📆 20 March 2025

warwick-careers.tal.net/vx/appcentre...

If someone's daily consumption is unchanged, but they live more days, they are clearly better off. but I'm not sure I would say they are *financially* better off. sure, from gvmt perspective they cost more, if gvmt is paying for that consumption stream, but per-period utility for indiv isn't higher

Card explaining some of the benefits of working at CenTax as a Research Economist/pre-doc. These include co-authoring academic papers and policy briefings, getting media exposure, and a structured path into PhD programmes and other economics research careers

🚨PRE-DOC OPPORTUNITY🚨
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🔸considering a future in #econ research, via a PhD or other paths (thinktanks, civil service);
🔸interested in studying Qs abt tax, growth & ineq;
then come work w/me, @andy-summers.bsky.social + @centaxuk.bsky.social team
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Yes, but normal people don't think about their wealth based on public finances, they think about what they can afford each day/month/year

bsky.app/profile/arun...

Just a couple of days left to apply to this position to join our team @centaxuk.bsky.social

#econ_ra #taxsky #econsky

Call for Papers for NBER Spring Public Meeting is out, submission link below!

conference.nber.org/confsubmit/b...

Has Rachel Reeves given in to the non-doms? Or is it just another win for the attention economy?

Much credulous reporting by the Times, BBC News and others this week that Rachel Reeves has "softened" the non-dom rules due to an "exodus of 10,000 millionaires".

Where's that figure from, then? And is it the real reason for Reeves' amendment?
www.newstatesman.com/politics/202...

@mikesavagelse.bsky.social in case you hadn't seen this already

Coda: here is a bit more of that sales pitch. Along with general talk about "wealthy Britons", who are anyway not affected by non-dom changes bcos Osborne 2017 reforms stopped almost all UK born folk (via Cond A) from using the regime. All very confused!

Non-doms is a hard area, but useful to speak to an expert to check, rather than only a lobby group and the PR team of an org trying to sell its services (and apparently unsure of the difference between per cent and percentage points)

It matters not just because you shd generally get the facts right, but bcos being out by 15x on how many ppl pay 30k totally changes plausibility of claims by lobby group cited as to how many ppl there are who wd pay 200k

Labour’s tax plans trigger exodus of millionaires from UK Since the general election was called one dollar millionaire has left Britain every 45 minutes

Disappointing piece on non-doms/millionaires in @thetimes.com

Many things to object to, incl simple fact checking. No, there are not 37.8k ppl paying 30k a year to live here. There are 2.4k. Cd just check hmrc website for that.

www.thetimes.com/article/labo...
@tomjss.bsky.social #taxsky

Short thread on some of your point
bsky.app/profile/arun...

None of this is to say that the headline wealth concentration or Gini measures from WAS are rising.

But I think it is more helpful to look at what intuitions people have, and see if they are wrong, or just not smthng the data tell us about. In this case, the data just don't cover it.

As someone who does actually read the deets, you know WAS explicitly isn't sampling ppl without homes. It also isn't going to pick up ppl who are not spending much resid in UK

(below from my paper, bcos I can't screenshot a nice short summary from WAS docs onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/10.1111/...)

Inequality: the IFS Deaton Review Inequalities in the Twenty First Century

More charitably one cd say that there are lots of types of ineq (see IFS Deaton Review ifs.org.uk/inequality/).

Many of these have increased.

Also, ordinary ppl use "ineq" to mean "I see more homelessness + more luxury apartments", which isn't inconsistent with this

2. Wealth *gaps* have increased.
Wealth inequality measures relative share e.g. economy of 2 ppl, one with 10, one with 90 means top 50% has 90% of wealth.
If wealth doubles, one has 20, other has 180. Top 50% is still 90%.
But in £ the top has gone from having 80 more to 160 more than bottom

1b. Also, ppl are living longer, which is great but means that wealth is money they have to spread over a longer period = middle folk don't "feel" better off at any point in time.

This is a wonderful outcome, they have time they are alive. But doesn't accord w/intuitive feeling of being wealthier

1a. Not obv that middle are "better off" for that wealth, bcos a large part has come from shift in pension wealth being held privately (vs state). Privatisation means we measure it

If you excl pens wealth
onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/10.1111/...

That flatness comes from a mix of two things.
1. Rising wealth at the very top, and rising wealth in the middle. The top have definitely got more money in that period.
2. But so has the middle, and there are many more of them.

Two HUGE caveats here

I think late 1800s is as far back as you can get for UK. This is from Alvaredo Atkinson Morelli (www.tony-atkinson.com/wp-content/u... if you want all 115 pgs!) + a prettier vers

wealth ineq was very high, 📉 1910s to hit low c.1980, then 📈 a bit til c.2000, since when it has been reasonably flat

We have a new paper on this out shortly (just been doing revisions for EER), focusing on measurement issues in WAS vs National Accounts.

AAM use NA for denominator, bcos only thing avail, but it has problems in use for measuring private wealth

🎓We do academic-quality work, producing a mix of academic papers and policy pieces, which are regularly in the media📰📺
📊We have access to awesome data, and are looking at cool Qs
👥We typically share co-authorship
📅 Deadline 31st Jan

econjobmarket.org/positions/11...
#econ_ra #econsky

Card explaining some of the benefits of working at CenTax as a Research Economist/pre-doc. These include co-authoring academic papers and policy briefings, getting media exposure, and a structured path into PhD programmes and other economics research careers

🚨PRE-DOC OPPORTUNITY🚨
If you are
🔸considering a future in #econ research, via a PhD or other paths (thinktanks, civil service);
🔸interested in studying Qs abt tax, growth & ineq;
then come work w/me, @andy-summers.bsky.social + @centaxuk.bsky.social team
econjobmarket.org/positions/11...
#econ_ra

European economic association conf will be in Bordeaux this summer. Definitely worse places you could spend Aug!

📆Paper submission deadline Feb 28 #EconSky

@sigginho.bsky.social and I looking forward to your public econ submissions

A success story from the first minute: @centaxuk.bsky.social launch at Portcullis House, Westminster, tonight with standing room only and a waiting list of people who could not get in. Kudos to Andy Summers and Arun Advani @warwickecon.bsky.social 🚀