ABSTRACT
This chapter lists a number of possible developments in work on household income distribution and redistribution. It is much more tentative than a detailed programme of work, and is certainly open for modification in the light of discussion. It contains few indications of relative priorities or of who should do which parts of the work. Although much of it will be carried out in the Central Statistical Office (the impetus for this chapter came from the Social Statistics Division), much will also be carried out by other government departments and by university departments. What we hope will emerge from the discussion is a set of views about the relative priorities of the different kinds of development listed, and of any not listed. In listing possible developments in this way we are not suggesting that we have the resources available to carry out the work at all quickly. We shall be particularly dependent on the assistance and advice of other departments, particularly (i) the Department of Health and Social Security, Inland Revenue, Office of Population Censuses and Surveys and Department of Employment for all the problems of data gathering and manipulation, and (ii) most importantly, the Treasury for the stimulus of policy applications and of econometric analysis. Nicholson and Britton (Chapter 10) in addition to concentrating on the progressivity of the tax and benefit system, refer to the series of annual estimates published in Economic Trends and to some of the assumptions behind them. This chapter is intended to be complementary. Although it concentrates on income and ignores wealth, we are not suggesting that the distribution of wealth is not important, merely that our contribution is long enough as it is. The same reason lies behind the scant attention given to the income and expenditure of individuals, to tax units, and to supplementary benefits units.
