Paul Ashton

Current Work

I am currently working at the University of Greenwich  and the LINK Centre for Deafened People on a 3-year Community Fund-financed project on the psychosocial problems faced by deafened people and their families. Using both questionnaires and one-to-one interviews, the aim of the research is to find ways to help individuals and families overcome the problems that result from late-onset deafness.

[N.B. Update January 2006: work now finished. Three publications resulted from this work shown below*].

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Research

Apart from my present research project, other areas of research interests include poverty and income distribution, unemployment, and the UK tax and benefit system which were pursued when working with Prof Patrick Minford at the Macroeconomic Research Group, University of Liverpool. These previous research projects involved:

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• Detailed statistical analysis of General Household Survey data tapes for test of New Classical Labour Supply Hypothesis using a large number of variables relating to income, employment, and personal and household characteristics in multiple regressions using the SPSS software.

 

• Regional unemployment project using both time-series and regional cross-sectional data on output, rates of unemployment, union density, and business rates. A Housing Mobility Index was constructed to measure the disparity between free market and controlled rents in the private and local authority rented sectors to help explain regional variations in unemployment rates.

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• Forecasting of Liverpool and Merseyside's output and unemployment.

 

• Writing of a Tax-Benefit computer program to identify the 'poverty' and unemployment traps brought about by the interaction of the two systems.

 

• Computer analysis of questionnaires on NHS printing practices returned from District and Regional Health Authorities, and the write-up of the results.

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• Labour demand & supply analyses of the German and Belgium economies.

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• Incentive and disincentive effects of income tax changes on top earners.

 

• Assessments of government programmes directed at the long-term unemployed.    

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• Appraisal of government proposals for changes to the tax and benefit systems (Lawson/Fowler reforms).

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• Construction of a model to forecast the future demand for health care in the UK.

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• Writing of a computer program to emulate the Child Support Agency's formula for calculating maintenance Payments.

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Publications

Ashton P., 'Families in the Poverty and Unemployment Traps', House of Commons Treasury and Civil Service Sub-Committee, The       Structure of Personal Income Taxation and Income Support, Appendices (1983), pp. 92-107

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Ashton P., 'Out of Work Benefits and Income in Work: updated estimates', LMRG Quarterly Economic Bulletin, September 1983, pp. 16-19

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Ashton P., 'Social Security Changes and Employment Decisions', LMRG Quarterly Economic Bulletin, December 1983, pp. 32-35

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Ashton P., 'The Housing Benefit Saga', LMRG Quarterly Economic Bulletin, March 1984, pp. 28-30

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Ashton P., 'Poverty and its Beholders', New Society, 18th October 1984, pp. 95-98

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Ashton P., 'Replacement Ratios and Unemployment Decisions', LMRG Quarterly Economic Bulletin, December 1984, pp. 24-27

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Minford P., Ashton P., Peel M., Davies D., and Sprague A., Unemployment - Cause and Cure, (2nd. Edition), Martin Robertson, 1985

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Ashton P., and Minford P., 'On Reforming Social Security', LMRG Quarterly Economic Bulletin, September 1985, pp. 26-38

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Minford P., Ashton P., and Peel M., 'Housing Reform to Create Jobs', Economic Affairs, Feb/March 1986, pp. 32-34

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Minford P., Stoney P., and Ashton P., 'Regional Prospects', Merseyside Economic Prospect, Vol. 1 No 1, February 1986

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Ashton P., 'The Lawson/Fowler Reforms: A Tax-Benefit System for the 1990s', LMRG Quarterly Economic Bulletin, June 1986

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Minford P., Peel M., and Ashton P., The Housing Morass, Hobart Paperback 25, I.E.A., 1987

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Ashton P., 'Tackling Long-term Unemployment: An Assessment of Restart', LMRG Quarterly Economic Bulletin, March 1987, pp. 27-30

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Ashton P., and Minford P., 'What is the effect on tax revenue of cutting top tax rates?', LMRG Quarterly Economic Bulletin, March 1987,

pp. 21-22

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Ashton P., 'Poverty - what poverty?', Poverty, Spring 1987 No. 66

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Minford P., and Ashton P., 'Labour supply responses and the effect of tax rates', LMRG Quarterly Economic Bulletin, March 1988, pp

. 28-35

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Ashton P., 'Good news for Merseyside', Daily Post, 16/3/88

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Ashton P., 'Dependency And Unemployment Compensation', Economic Affairs, April/May 1988 pp. 6-11

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Minford P., Ashton P., and Peel M., 'The Effects of Housing Distortions on Unemployment', Oxford Economic Papers, 40 (1988), 322-345

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Ashton P., 'Tax/Benefit Reform and Incentives', LMRG Quarterly Economic Bulletin, Dec 1988, pp. 31-36

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Ashton P., 'Social Security - one year on', Community Care, 23 March 1989

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Minford P., Ashton P., 'The Effects in the UK of EEC Wage Proposals in the Social Charter',  LMRG Quarterly Economic Bulletin  Dec 1989

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Ashton P., 'Homelessness and the Housing Market', Economic Affairs, vol. 10 no.6 (1990)

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Ashton P., 'Major Balancing Act', Daily Post, 21 March 1990

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Minford P., Ashton P., 'Labour's Economic Policies', LMRG Quarterly Economic Bulletin, June 1990

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Ashton P., 'Trickle-Down: Myth or Reality?', LMRG Quarterly Economic Bulletin, October 1990

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Minford P., Ashton P., and Peel M., 'Housing Reform to Create Jobs', in: Recent Controversies in Political Economy, ed. R. Lewis, Routledge, pp. 124-131, 1991

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Minford P., Ashton P., and Peel M., 'Housing Reform to Create Jobs', in: The Supply Side Revolution in Britain, A.P.L. Minford, Edward Elgar, pp. 132-140, 1990

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Minford P., Ashton P., Greenwood B., Labour's Economic Policies: how much will they cost the economy?, Aims of Industry, January 1991

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Minford P., Ashton P., 'The Poverty Trap and the Laffer Curve - What Can the GHS Tell Us?', Oxford Economic Papers 43 (1991), 245-279

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Minford P., Ashton P., 'The Effects in the UK of the EEC Wage Proposals in the Social Charter', International Journal of Manpower, Vol. 12 No 2, 1991 20-23

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Ashton P., 'Touch on the Tiller', Daily Post, 20 March 1991

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Ashton P., 'The Unemployment Trap in the Thatcher Years', LMRG Quarterly Economic Bulletin, March 1991

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Ashton P., 'The Anomalous CSA Maintenance Formula: Proposals for Reform' LMRG Quarterly Economic Bulletin, Oct, 1994

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Ashton P., 'How Go the Poverty and Unemployment Traps?', LMRG Quarterly Economic Bulletin, Vol. 15 No 3, October 1994

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Minford P., Ashton P., Public Spending: a twenty-year plan for reform, Centre for Policy Studies, November 1995

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Ashton P., 'Poverty Definitions and the Poverty Lobby', LMRG Quarterly Economic Bulletin, June 1996, pp34-40

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Minford P., Ashton P., 'Rolling back the State: proposals for reforming public spending', Economics and Business Education, Autumn 1996, Vol. IV, Part 3, pp.103-105

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Ashton P., 'From Unemployment to Work: Barriers to the Part-Time Option', LMRG Quarterly Economic Bulletin, June 1997

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Ashton P., 'Give Labour's jobs policy a chance', Personnel Today, 30 October 1997

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Ashton P., 'Welfare Reform: A Basic Income Next?', LMRG Quarterly Economic Bulletin, April 1998

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Ashton P., 'The Working Families Tax Credit: a Reform Worth Having?', LMRG Quarterly Economic Bulletin, July 1998 pp23-32

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Ashton P., 'A Note on the Employment and PSBR effects of the Minimum Wage', LMRG Quarterly Economic Bulletin, October 1998 pp20-21

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Ashton P., 'Child Maintenance Reform: an equitable solution?', LMRG Quarterly Economic Bulletin, December 1998 pp28-34

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Ashton P., 'Pension Reform: at what cost?', LMRG Quarterly Economic Bulletin, April 1999 pp24-28

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Ashton P., ' New Labour's Welfare and Tax Reforms: all that glitters…', LMRG Quarterly Economic Bulletin, March 2001 pp20-32 

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*Hallam, R., Ashton P., Sherbourne K., Gailey L., 'Acquired profound hearing loss: mental health and other characteristics of a large sample.' International Journal of Audiology, Volume 45, Number 12, December 2006, pp. 715-723

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*Hallam, R., Ashton. P., Sherbourne, K., Gailey, L., & Corney, R., 'Coping, conversation tactics and marital interaction in persons with acquired profound hearing loss (APHL): Correlates of distress.' Audiological Medicine, Volume 5, Issue 2 2007, pp. 103-111

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*Hallam, R., Ashton P., Sherbourne K., Gailey L., 'Persons with acquired profound hearing loss (APHL): how do they and their families adapt to the challenge?', Health, Vol. 12, No. 3, pp. 369-388 (2008)    

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Ashton, P., 'Poor Lore: Child Poverty in the UK', Mensa Magazine, April 2013 pp.18-20

Ashton P., 'Is the Living Wage Really a good thing?', QEB, Oct 2015, Julian Hodge Institute of Applied Macroeconomics, pp.19-21

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Ashton P., MacKinnon N., and Minford P., 'The Economics of Unskilled Immigration',  November 2016, QEB,  Julian Hodge Institute of Applied Macroeconomics, pp.21-24

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Ashton P., Book Review: Deeming, C. (ed.) Minimum income standards and reference budgets, UK, Policy Press (Published 2020); 

Social Policy & Administration, Vol 57: No. 1, pp 102-103 (2023)

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​*Publications resulting from Deafness Research

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