I am a Principal Economist at the Resolution Foundation, a leading UK think tank working to inform public debate and improve the living standards of people on low and middle incomes.

This is my personal blog for additional thoughts on public policy, philosophy and economics, as well as copies of older articles and think tank work that have been published elsewhere.

You can follow me on Bluesky @adamcorlett Twitter @adamcorlett

What work am I most proud of?

I like to pretend think I have had some minor professional/political impacts on the world, working with others:

• In 2011, I helped change Lib Dem drugs policy, which I think got the ball rolling in breaking a British political taboo (though, as of 2023, UK policy change has been very limited outside of Scotland)
• While working at CentreForum, I may have invented part of the ‘Progress 8’ education measure: specifically the double-weighting of English and maths
• I played a very minor, unquantifiable role in the 2015 tax credits U-turn, which avoided a large income fall for millions
• In 2016 I wrote a paper that was an important contribution to the understanding of global income trends (correcting widespread misunderstanding of the ‘elephant curve’)
• A 2017 paper prompted the ONS to improve its household income statistics, revising down historical inequality and perhaps speeding up improvements to top income data
• In The (Resolution Foundation’s) Living Standards Audit 2018 I showed for the first time how wrong British poverty statistics may have been, although this is not the final word
• In 2018 I delivered a report on Replacing business rates that I think took the state of analysis and policy significantly forward, and was adopted as Lib Dem policy; and a 2023 paper further develops these ideas
• Budget 2020 reformed Entrepreneurs’ Relief, raising £1.8bn a year, which I’m fairly confident I helped influence
• I played a minor, unquantifiable role in the 2021 Universal Credit increase (following on from the temporary £20 a week boost), which adds £3bn a year to poorer households’ incomes; as well as in ensuring that poorer households were supported during the cost of living crisis and that benefits were not cut

I am proud also to donate 5% of my gross income to charity.

What would I like to be proud of in future? [Mostly for my own future reference and motivation]

Beyond family life, I would like to contribute, in inevitably small ways, to ensuring that prosperous civilisation survives into the (very large) future, with as little suffering along the way as possible, with a focus on UK policy-making.

For the medium-term, there are many ways in which I’d like the UK to be happier, richer, fairer and greener by 2030, and I set out some hopes here. Among other things, I will be fighting for: reducing farmed animal suffering through lower consumption and higher standards; reducing absolute poverty including through higher benefits; rapid greenhouse gas emission cuts; reforms in the tax system; gender-equal parental pay; and better statistics about income distributions.

If there are no civilisational disasters, I’m personally likely to live to see 2060, maybe 2070, maybe even 2080. At the risk of being anodyne, I would like to contribute in tiny ways to building a society in 2060 that is: still around (potentially with 10 billion people); substantially richer (2% productivity growth per year would make us twice as rich per person in 2060 as in 2024); globally far more equal in both income and health; almost entirely zero-carbon in terms of global energy use; no longer using other sentient beings for food, clothing or entertainment; and able to make more space for nature. Like any good nerd, I also look forward to seeing a bright future for our health, non-destructive AI, self-driving cars, new science (including pinning down the nature of dark matter and dark energy) and space exploration (including seeing people walk on the Moon and Mars). Let’s make all of this happen!