The essays in this volume were written over the period 1989 to 1994 as part of the Welfare State Programme at STICERD, London School of Economics. It is a pleasure to begin by thanking Michio Morishima, founder Chairman of STICERD, who encouraged me to draw up a research programme on this subject, Suntory Limited and its then Chairman and President, K. Saji, for supporting the first four years of the Programme, and the ESRC which provided financing from 1988 to January 1993 under its Welfare Research Programme (Grant X206 32 2001). Secondly, I have a great debt to those who made up the Welfare State Programme, including Julian Le Grand, John Hills and Howard Glenner-ster, who jointly acted as directors, and Jane Dickson, the Programme Secretary. The essays in this book owe a great deal to members of the Programme, particularly Holly Sutherland, now Director of the Micro-simulation Unit at Cambridge. In addition, chapter 2 builds on a joint project carried out with Lee Rainwater and Tim Smeeding as part of the Luxembourg Income Study, and chapters 9 and 10 draw on joint research with John Micklewright of Queen Mary Westfield, London, and the European University Institute, Florence. At the same time, I should emphasise that no one apart from me is responsible for the views expressed.

A number of the chapters make use of material from the Family Expenditure Survey made available by the Central Statistical Office (CSO) through the ESRC Data Archive by permission of the Controller of HM Stationery Office.