David Phillips

David is a Senior Research Economist, currently working in the Direct Tax and Welfare sector and the Centre for the Evaluation of Development Policy (EDePo@IFS). Most of David's work is arranged around the broad themes of poverty, inequality and the tax and benefit system and includes projects both in the UK and in middle income countries. Recent projects include analysis of the distributional and behavioural impacts of tax reforms in Mexico and El Salvador for the World Bank; an assessment of the impact of welfare reforms on labour supply in Wales; and analysis of poverty and inequality in the UK.He is also working with Magali Beffy, Guy Laroque and Costas Meghir on models of family labour supply, a piece of work that has grown out of his work for the Mirrlees Review. More recent research interests include local government spending and the analysis of fiscal issues in the devolved nations of the UK, especially those related to the Scottish independence debate. He also has experience analysing social capital, human capital and consumer demand.