External publications

External publication

World Happiness Report 2025

In this year's issue, we focus on the impact of caring and sharing on people's happiness. Like 'mercy' in Shakespeare's Merchant of Venice, caring is "twice-blessed" - it blesses those who give and those who receive. In ...Read more...

External publication

International Trade: Issue 2

Over the last four decades, many developing countries initiated reforms that have lowered barriers to trade. Yet despite these reforms, developing countries still remain far less open than developed ones, both because of...Read more...

External publication

Foreign Direct Investment

Multinational enterprises are at the centre of policy debates in low- and middle-income countries. As some of the most productive and innovative firms in the world, which are at the core of global supply chains, multinat...Read more...

External publication

A generation at risk: rebalancing education in the post-pandemic era

We present for the first time a model of children's evolving socio-emotional and cognitive skills to assess how the educational and lifetime prospects of children of different ages, genders and socio-economic backgrounds...Read more...

External publication

Labour Economics: Thinking through Labour's economic agenda

With the Labour Party having vowed to achieve the fastest growth in the G7, the Social Market Foundation has brought together leading economic experts to provide independent analysis of the party's proposed approach - an...Read more...

External publication

World Happiness Report 2024

This issue of the World Happiness Report focuses on the happiness of people at different stages of life. In the seven ages of man in Shakespeare's As You Like It, the later stages of life are portrayed as deeply depressi...Read more...

External publication

Old Skills, New Skills - what is changing in the UK labour market?

The UK, along with other industrial countries, is experiencing rapid technological change associated with robotics and artificial intelligence, precipitating significant transformations in terms of how work is organised,...Read more...

External publication

The state of the UK economy 2024

The state of the UK economy is always an important matter, but it is all the more so in what looks likely to be an election year. This UK in a Changing Europe report takes stock of the UK economy in order to assess how i...Read more...

External publication

Ending stagnation

The UK has great strengths, but is a decade and a half into a period of stagnation. The toxic combination of slow growth and high inequality was straining the living standards of low- and middle-income Britain well befor...Read more...

External publication

Finance for the future

The UK Government has an opportunity to mobilise far greater amounts of private investment for public policy priorities than is the case now. Blended finance, deployed well, offers a tried and tested pathway for public a...Read more...

External publication

Applying the Robbins Principle to further education and apprenticeship

Britain does well at higher education, and badly for its non-graduates. The main problem is our failure to train more people when they are young. Shockingly, 30 per cent of 18 year olds are not in education or training -...Read more...

External publication

Learning to grow: how to situate a skills strategy in an economic strategy

Investing in human capital is a crucial aspect of building an economy that is both more productive and fairer, and any growth strategy must incorporate an agenda for increasing human capital and workforce skills within t...Read more...

External publication

Why are the latest net migration figures not a reliable guide to future trends?

This report examines how different types of immigration contribute to net migration in the long term, and what levels of net migration the UK might expect in coming years....Read more...

External publication

Ready for change

Britain's productivity shortfall is its foundational economic problem. Debate about this gap and how to fix it typically focus on raising productivity of existing firms, via two routes. First, innovation: investment, R&D...Read more...

External publication

A tale of two cities (part 2)

Few would disagree that the UK has a significant productivity problem, or fail to recognise that the poor performance of the nation's largest cities outside the capital contribute to that situation. As the Economy 2030 I...Read more...

External publication

A tale of two cities (part 1)

After the success of the Commonwealth Games in 2022, Birmingham is now in the news for the wrong reasons. Financial difficulties facing the City Council culminated in a formal declaration on 5 September 2023 that Britain...Read more...

External publication

Beyond boosterism

The UK is a low investment nation. Low business investment is a big driver of this. Low investment is one reason behind the UK's weak productivity growth, which in turn is the main reason behind the stagnation in UK livi...Read more...

External publication

Trading up

After nearly half a century of EU membership, Britain needs a trade strategy. The stakes are high: such a strategy shapes what families and firms buy from abroad, and what gets produced domestically; influences our jobs,...Read more...

External publication

Low pay Britain 2023

After a decade and a half of relative economic decline, Britain needs a new economic strategy. This paper considers what it would mean to put good work centre stage. It requires us to go far beyond the narrow focus this ...Read more...

External publication

World Happiness Report 2023

It has been over ten years since the first World Happiness Report was published. And it is exactly ten years since the United Nations General Assembly adopted Resolution 66/281, proclaiming 20 March to be observed annual...Read more...

External publication

Train in vain?

Human capital and skills are important for improving the UK's labour market and economic performance. This note assesses how the skills needed in the UK labour market have changed over past decades, and how well placed o...Read more...

External publication

Adopt, adapt and improve

Worries that jobs will be lost to automation are not new, but have been heightened since the release of Frey and Osborne's 2013 study, which warned that nearly half of jobs in the US were at 'high risk' of automation. Ne...Read more...

External publication

Education Inequalities

Education is one of the most important predictors of people's life chances. Better-educated people are more likely to be in work and tend to earn more, and the influence of education does not stop there. Education shapes...Read more...

External publication

The Conservative leadership contest: a guide to the policy landscape:

Housing and Planning

With the Conservative leadership contest underway, what is the country as a whole to make of the various pledges being made by the remaining candidates? What promises are credible? What will be the impact of the policies...Read more...

External publication

Stagnation nation: navigating a route to a fairer and more prosperous Britain

The UK has great strengths, but is over a decade into a period of stagnation. The toxic combination of slow growth and high inequality was posing challenges for low-to-middle income Britain's living standards even before...Read more...

External publication

Power plays

The cost of living crisis and the return of strikes over pay and conditions have brought the issue of worker power to the fore in 2022. Although some have pointed to a tight labour market as enabling workers to demand hi...Read more...

External publication

Bridging the gap

An economic strategy that helps the UK respond to change and tackle stagnant living standards and productivity will need to address the stubborn spatial disparities in economic performance across the UK. Addressing these...Read more...

External publication

The economics of Brexit: what have we learned?

This eBook, produced by VoxEU/CEPR and UK in a Changing Europe, brings together leading academic researchers on trade, immigration and political economy to assess what we have learned, 18 months on from its implementatio...Read more...

External publication

The big Brexit

Leaving the EU represents the largest change in the UK's relationship with the rest of the world in nearly half a century. It is a profound change in economic governance, that will reorient production and trade away from...Read more...

External publication

Net zero jobs

The Government's commitment to achieving net zero greenhouse gas emissions by 2050 will mean investment, and change, across the economy: from the decarbonisation of buildings and surface transport, to shifts in diet, avi...Read more...

External publication

Social mobility: past, present and future

Andrew Eyles, Lee Elliot Major and Stephen Machin forecast that relative income mobility levels in the UK could fall by as much as 12%, driven by learning loss in schools....Read more...

External publication

Low pay Britain 2022

This edition of Low Pay Britain is the Resolution Foundation's twelfth annual report taking stock of the state of low pay. Recent editions have focused on the short-term impacts of the Covid-19 crisis on low paid workers...Read more...

External publication

Growing clean

This report, the 19th report for The Economy 2030 Inquiry, provides a hard-headed assessment of the opportunities presented to UK plc by the move to net zero, and considers how best these can be unlocked. It does this by...Read more...

External publication

Enduring strengths

A decade of stagnant living standards, weak productivity and low investment combined with a coming decade of major change - driven by Covid-19, Brexit and Net Zero - mean that it is crucial for the UK to renew its econom...Read more...

External publication

Post-Brexit imports, supply chains, and the effect on consumer prices

This report documents the decrease in imports and shows how the patterns of imports vary across sectors following the UK's departure from the Single Market and Customs Union at the end of 2020. The authors, Jan David Bak...Read more...

External publication

World Happiness Report 2022

This year marks the 10th anniversary of the World Happiness Report, which uses global survey data to report how people evaluate their own lives in more than 150 countries worldwide. The World Happiness Report 2022 reveal...Read more...

External publication

Monopsony in local labour markets

In this commentary, we propose a monopsony model of the labour market in which market power stems from idiosyncratic worker preferences over non-wage attributes of jobs. In this set-up, the relationship between wages and...Read more...

External publication

Labour market inequality

Wage and earnings inequality has been on the rise in the UK since the late 1970s / early 1980s, and with faster increases than comparator countries it is now one of the countries with the highest levels of wage and earni...Read more...

External publication

Innovation and inequalities

Innovation can affect inequalities in many ways - increasing some inequalities and decreasing others. An innovation can introduce a new good, improve the quality of existing goods, or lead to new ways of doing things. It...Read more...

External publication

Firms and inequalities

There have been some dramatic changes in the business landscape in American firms over the last four decades that have been extensively documented by researchers and are the subject of much public debate (e.g. Van Reenen...Read more...

External publication

Spatial disparities across labour markets

Spatial inequalities in the UK are profound and persistent. In 2019, average wages in London were 60% higher than those in Scarborough and Grimsby. Employment rates ranged from 66% in Skegness and Louth to 90% in Harroga...Read more...

External publication

Changing jobs?

This report is about the nature and speed of change in the UK's labour market, about how past periods of rapid change have happened, and about workers' experiences as they have lived through these changes. It is written ...Read more...

External publication

Social mobility in the time of Covid: assessing the social mobility implications of Covid-19

Covid-19 has had a profound impact on the economic prospects of young people. This briefing note, which forms part of the Economy 2030 Inquiry, documents the unequal impact of economic shocks on the young and assesses wh...Read more...

External publication

Business time

The UK is set for a decade of major change, with private sector firms in the front line. How ready are they for this change? What form should policy towards business take within a new economic strategy for the UK? This r...Read more...

External publication

Trading places

This briefing note is the launch paper for the Brexit research theme of The Economy 2030 Inquiry, a joint project between the Resolution Foundation and the London School of Economics, funded by the Nuffield Foundation. I...Read more...

External publication

The carbon crunch

This report is the launch paper for the net zero strand of the Economy 2030 Inquiry, a joint project between the Resolution Foundation and the London School of Economics. It outlines how net zero can be placed at the cen...Read more...

External publication

Pancakes to pyramids: city form to promote sustainable growth (English)

Towns and cities are economic and social microcosms in which large numbers of people and firms interact. These interactions largely shape how a city looks, how it functions, and how it grows. But how exactly does this ma...Read more...

External publication

The UK's decisive decade: the launch report for The Economy 2030 Inquiry

This report marks the launch of The Economy 2030 Inquiry, a landmark collaboration between the Resolution Foundation and the Centre for Economic Performance at the London School of Economics, funded by the Nuffield Found...Read more...

External publication

World Happiness Report 2021

The World Happiness Report 2021 focuses on the effects of COVID-19 and how people all over the world have fared. Our aim was two-fold, first to focus on the effects of COVID-19 on the structure and quality of people's li...Read more...

External publication

UK economic diplomacy in the 21st century: the LSE Economic Diplomacy Commission final report

The LSE Economic Diplomacy Commission was convened in 2019 to establish a strategic direction for a new age of foreign economic policy, to understand the domestic ramifications of changes to the UK's trade agenda, and to...Read more...

External publication

Brexit and beyond:

Brexit and UK trade: what next?

Brexit is expected to make the UK poorer in the long run compared to remaining an EU member. Although the analysis used to reach this conclusion is complex, most forecasts depend upon the same economic logic. Brexit will...Read more...

External publication

IZA Research Report No. 105:

IZA Covid-19 crisis response monitoring: United Kingdom

On the 23rd of March, the United Kingdom locked down in response to the COVID-19 pandemic. Subsequently, the UK economy suffered the biggest contraction of economic activity in 41 years, experiencing a 21.5% year-on-year...Read more...

External publication

Vulnerabilities of supply chains post-Brexit

Arla Foods UK has commissioned LSE Consulting's Trade Policy Hub to deliver a study on the vulnerabilities of supply chains in the United Kingdom and the European Union after Brexit. This study provides a follow up to th...Read more...

External publication

World Happiness Report 2020

The World Happiness Report is a landmark survey of the state of global happiness that ranks 156 countries by how happy their citizens perceive themselves to be. The World Happiness Report 2020 for the first time ranks ci...Read more...

External publication

Homes on the right tracks

Technically, there is an easy solution to the UK crisis of housing supply: find more land for housing. This is not a physical problem but a political one. The land is there but policies and habits of thought prevent its ...Read more...

External publication

World Happiness Report 2019

The World Happiness Report is a landmark survey of the state of global happiness that ranks 156 countries by how happy their citizens perceive themselves to be. The World Happiness Report 2019 focuses on happiness and th...Read more...

External publication

World Happiness Report 2018

The World Happiness Report is a landmark survey of the state of global happiness. The World Happiness Report 2018, ranks 156 countries by their happiness levels, and 117 countries by the happiness of their immigrants. Th...Read more...

External publication

The impact of academies on educational outcomes - the Education Policy Institute

The expansion of the academies programme has been one of the biggest changes to the English education system in a generation. 3.4 million children are now taught in either a sponsored or a converter academy. Those childr...Read more...

External publication

World Happiness Report 2017

The first World Happiness Report was published in April, 2012, in support of the UN High Level Meeting on happiness and well-being. Since then the world has come a long way. Increasingly, happiness is considered to be th...Read more...

External publication

Measuring wellbeing and cost-effectiveness analysis

The measuring wellbeing series consists of discussion papers and how-to guides. This publication is a discussion paper. Why ignite discussion about measuring wellbeing? In our role as an independent collaborating centre...Read more...

External publication

World Happiness Report 2016

The World Happiness Report 2016 Update, which ranks 156 countries by their happiness levels, was released in Rome in advance of UN World Happiness Day, March 20th. The widespread interest in the World Happiness Reports, ...Read more...

External publication

Measuring competitiveness in Europe: resource allocation, granularity and trade:

The importance of micro data in assessing aggregate outcomes

In recent years, researchers and policymakers have been able to use sophisticated databases to provide insightful economic analysis. The increasing variety of available microeconomic databases and the improvement in the ...Read more...

External publication

World Happiness Report 2015

Since it was first published in 2012, the World Happiness Report demonstrated that well-being and happiness are critical indicators of a nation's economic and social development, and should be a key aim of policy. This y...Read more...

External publication

Report on wellbeing and public policy

An independent commission chaired by Gus O'Donnell proposes a radical reform of public policy-making, targeted at wellbeing, or life satisfaction, not simply economic growth.Its report, Wellbeing and Policy, commissioned...Read more...

External publication

World Happiness Report 2013

The second World Happiness Report, released on Sept 9th 2013, further strengthens the case that well-being should be a critical component of how the world measures its economic and social development....Read more...

External publication

World Happiness Report 2012

The 2012 World Happiness Report, published by the Earth Institute and co-edited by the institute’s director, Jeffrey Sachs, reflects a new worldwide demand for more attention to happiness and absence of misery as criteri...Read more...

External publication

The effect of tracking students by ability into different schools: a natural experiment - FEEM working paper

The tracking of pupils by ability into elite and non-elite schools represents a controversial policy in many countries. There is no consensus on how large the elite track should be and little agreement on the effects of ...Read more...