The aim of this study is to provide readers with a clear and comprehensive economic analysis of the social security reforms introduced in the UK in April 1988. Economic authorities comment on the development, nature and impact of the reforms and discuss the economic effects of each provision.

Turning the screw - benefits for the unemployed 1979-88, Tony Atkinson and John Micklewright; is there a market failure in occupational sick pay?, Richard Disney and Steven Webb; trends in dependence on supplementary benefit, Jonathan Bradshaw and Meg Huby; social security and the economics of housing, Richard Berthoud; poverty, incentives and linear income taxation, Ravi Kanbur and Michael Keen; the effect of transfer programmes on work effort and human capital formation - evidence from the US, Robert Moffitt and Anuradha Rangarajan; income risk and income maintenance - implications for incentives to work, Stephen Jenkins and Jane Millar; male unemployment and women's work, Andrew Dilnot and Michael Kell; the poverty trap, tax cuts and the reform of social security, Andrew Dilnot and Graham Stark; the take-up of supplementary benefit - gaps in the "safety net"?, Vanessa Fry and Graham Stark; the reform of social security - a government view, Michael Portillo; the politics of social security - an assessment of the Fowler Review, Ruth Lister; the new pension scheme in Britain, John Creedy and Richard Disney; the 1988 social security reforms, Andrew Dilnot and Steven Webb.