WARDEN
Tony Atkinson. In 1996/7 Tony Atkinson’s research has had a largely European focus. He has been part of a 15-country team investigating the possibility of constructing a Europe-wide benefit and tax model, EUROMOD. He has been particularly concerned with assessing the data series, including national micro datasets and the European Community Household Panel. The feasibility study was completed in July 1997, and a grant for the full model construction has been awarded by the European Commission as part of the European Union Framework Programme.
One of the aims of the EUROMOD project is to provide a tool which can be used to analyse the social dimension of Europe, including the impact of policy on poverty and social exclusion. The need for an integrated consideration of social and economic policies was the theme of papers presented to two conferences organized by the Dutch Government as part of its Presidency of the European Union in 1997. In these he developed at a European level the ideas set out in the Eva Colorni Memorial lecture in November 1996, which investigated the case for an official poverty target, drawing on the parallel with macro-economic performance criteria.
He served as President of Section F of the British Association for the Advancement of Science, and organized the meeting of the Section at the Annual Festival of Science at the University of Leeds in September 1997. The topic of the Section Meeting was ‘Equality and Opportunity’, and he delivered a paper on ‘Social Exclusion’.
He has continued to serve as President of the Royal Economic Society, as Editor of the Journal of Public Economics, and as a Trustee of the Nuffield Foundation. He was awarded Honorary Degrees by South Bank University and by the Catholic University of Louvain.
Publications
‘Bringing Income Distribution in from the Cold’, Economic Journal, 107, 1997.
‘Promise and Performance: Why We Need an Official Poverty Report’, in P Barker (ed.), Living as Equals. Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1996.
‘The Institution of an Official Poverty Line and Economic Policy’, in V A Muscatelli (ed.), Economic and Political Institutions in Economic Policy. Manchester: Manchester University Press, 1996.
‘Reflections on Social Protection and the European Economic Monetary Union’, in J Pacolet (ed.), Social Protection and the European Economic and Monetary Union. Aldershot: Avebury, 1996.
‘Macroeconomics and the Distribution of Income’, in P Arestis, G Palma and M Sawyer (eds.), Markets, Unemployment and Public Policy. London: Routledge, 1997.