Deaths of despair, once an American phenomenon, now haunt Britain

IN RECENT YEARS America has witnessed a troubling trend: a rise in what have become known as “deaths of despair”. Sir Angus Deaton and Anne Case, an academic couple both of Princeton University, have tracked an increase in the number of middle-aged whites dying from drug overdoses, suicides and alcohol-related conditions. Their work has shaped political debate in America. Now a report by the Institute for Fiscal Studies (IFS), a British think-tank, published on May 14th, suggests that something similar is taking place on the other side of the Atlantic.

This is one of the initial findings of a five-year review of inequality begun by the IFS, which will look at everything from income to political participation. In its scale and scope, the exercise will be on a par with the Mirrlees Review, a gargantuan assessment of the tax system undertaken by the same think-tank, which issued its final report in 2011 and has been a reference point for researchers ever since. Sir Angus, who won the Nobel prize for economics in 2015, is chairing a panel of worthies overseeing the project.