The performance of the economy and the economic credibility of the parties are central issues in the UK general election of May 2015. Most of the underlying policy questions are the subject of substantial academic research; and yet all too often, the findings of researchers do not make it into the public debate.

Over the coming weeks, Coalition Economics will host a collection of contributions from leading economic experts. These are intended to provide critical but fair assessments of the economic policies pursued by the coalition government in the UK since May 2010. They are in nearly all cases written by the people who contributed to a detailed assessment of the economic record of the previous Labour government, published in the spring 2013 edition of the Oxford Review of Economic Policy, and who are now writing on the coalition’s record in the same areas. The papers on the Labour government can be found through the Labour government 1997-2010 page.

These contributions will include:

• Paul Hare, Heriot-Watt University, on private public partnerships
• Giorgia Maffini, Oxford University, on corporate taxation
• Darup Aripa and Sandeep Kapur, Birkbeck, University of London, on financial regulation
• Robert Joyce and Luke Sibieta, IFS, on income inequality and poverty
• Anthony Heath, Oxford University, and Anna Mountford-Zimdars, King’s College London, on education
• John Appleby, King’s Fund, on health
• Ken Mayhew, Oxford University, on productivity
• Simon Wren-Lewis, Oxford University, on fiscal policy
• David Cobham, Heriot-Watt University, on monetary policy

If you have general comments or suggestions for topics or authors, we can be contacted via CoalitionEcon at gmail, or on twitter: @CoalitionEcon, or with the form below.