Fixing society with data

Richard Blundell of University College London talks about the use of microdata to inform policy. There has been an enormous expansion of data available to examine how families and individuals evolve during their lifetime in the labour market. For example it provides information on the trade-off between welfare/tax credit and minimum wage policies - if minimum wage policies are followed by reductions in working hours they will be ineffctive unless complemented by welfare/tax credit policies.