Education and skills

Blog

LSE Business Review:

Education makes women, not men, more likely to have children

Given the wide-ranging consequences of declining fertility rates, academics and policymakers around the world are increasingly interested in understanding what influences men's and women's decision to start a family. Han...Read more...

CEP report

Absence and attainment: Evidence from pandemic policy

A high level of school absence has persisted across many countries since the COVID-19 pandemic. We use English data to investigate whether a student's absence during the pandemic had a causal impact on school attendance...Read more...

CEP report

Pupil absence and the pandemic

This report investigates lost education time during the COVID-19 pandemic in England. We look at the general factors affecting rates of absence during different stages of the pandemic and the consequences of specific pol...Read more...

CEP report

Overview: The pandemic, pupil attendance and achievement

School absences increased massively during the Covid-19 pandemic and remain high internationally. We investigate whether policy variation in restrictions influenced pupil absence during the pandemic and how this affected...Read more...

CEP discussion paper

Elite universities and the intergenerational transmission of human and social capital

Do elite colleges help talented students join the social elite, or help incumbent elites retain their positions? We combine intergenerationally-linked data from Chile with a regression discontinuity design to show that, ...Read more...

Blog

LSE Business Review:

The educational choices of British 16-year-olds matter for the economy

The choices that British 16-year-olds are making in the next few weeks about their future studies matter not just for them and their families but also for the nation's economy. Britain needs a workforce with graduate-le...Read more...

Journal article

Journal of Urban Economics: Forthcoming

The spatial impacts of a massive rail disinvestment program: The Beeching Axe

This paper investigates the reversibility of the effects of transport infrastructure investments, based on a programme that removed much of the rail network in Britain during the mid-20th century. We find that a 10% loss...Read more...

Blog

Handbook of Labor Economics:

Handbook Talk with Stephen Machin: How does crime impact the economy and society? (Podcast)

In this podcast episode dedicated to the new edition of the Handbook of Labor Economics, Professor from the London School of Economics discusses the recent advances in the Economics of Crime. What are the economic con...Read more...

Journal article

Journal of International Economics: Forthcoming

New dawn fades: Trade, labour and the Brexit exchange rate depreciation

This paper studies consequences of the large exchange rate depreciation occurring when the UK electorate unexpectedly voted to leave the European Union. Sterling plummeted, recording the biggest one-day depreciation of a...Read more...

CEP discussion paper

Paternity leave and child development

We study the effect of paternity leave on early child development. We collect survey data on 5,000 children under age six in Spain and exploit several extensions of paternity leave that took place between 2017 and 2021. ...Read more...

Journal article

Oxford Open Economics:

Education inequalities

Education is one of the most important predictors of people's life chances, shaping outcomes like work and pay, health, and wealth. Explaining inequalities in educational outcomes, as well as how wider outcomes vary by e...Read more...

Blog

LSE Business Review:

The UK must invest in further and higher education

Education has not been a prominent part of the election debates, and further education even less so. But as Sandra McNally, Guglielmo Ventura and Gill Wyness argue, economic growth depends on paying much more attention t...Read more...

CEP election analysis

Further and higher education

There are not enough graduates for sectors in which the UK has a comparative advantage and there are too few people educated to sub-degree level compared to other countries....Read more...

CEP election analysis

Schools

Schools in England, and the UK as a whole, need greater investment. Failure to do so puts economic growth in jeopardy as well as worsening social mobility....Read more...

Journal article

Oxford Economic Papers: Forthcoming

Trends in effort at work in the UK

This article links detailed 24-h diary surveys in the UK for the last four decades, to provide evidence of an increase in work effort in three specific dimensions: timing, nature, and composition. We rule out certain pro...Read more...

CentrePiece article

The national minimum wage: 25 years on

It is now just over a quarter of a century since a national minimum wage was introduced in the UK. Once a source of controversy due to fears that it would lead to fewer jobs, the policy has instead proved to be highly su...Read more...

CentrePiece article

Online tutoring can transform education for disadvantaged youngsters

Online tutoring can transform education for disadvantaged youngsters Online tutoring has emerged as an effective strategy for narrowing the educational gaps that were exacerbated by the pandemic. Lucas Gortazar, Claudia ...Read more...

CentrePiece article

A generation scarred by the Covid-19 pandemic

The impact of the pandemic on education means that pupils in England are on course for lower GCSE grades well into the 2030s. Lee Elliot Major, Andrew Eyles, Esme Lillywhite and Stephen Machin say that the school system ...Read more...

CEP discussion paper

Education, gender and family formation

We study the effect of educational attainment on family formation using regression discontinuity designs generated by centralized admissions processes to both secondary and tertiary education in Finland. Admission to fur...Read more...

Blog

Economics Observatory:

University degrees: how should we assess their value?

Evaluating university degrees on the basis of the job prospects they provide for graduates has led to some being seen as 'low value' or 'low quality'. But, in reality, their worth is hard to measure. Closing such courses...Read more...

Blog

Economics Observatory:

How could the UK's education system be reformed to equalise opportunities?

Nine out of ten respondents to a recent UK poll by More in Common for the Sutton Trust agreed that it is important for young people to have equal opportunities, regardless of their background. While recent YouGov pollin...Read more...

Blog

Economics Observatory:

How can the UK's apprenticeship system be improved?

Apprenticeships are intended to provide opportunities for young people as they move from education to working life. But the way things operate in the UK means that those who would most benefit are often missing out. Appr...Read more...

Journal article

Energy Economics: Forthcoming

Are friends electric? Valuing the social costs of power lines using house prices

Overhead electrical power lines and pylons have long raised concerns regarding the effects of electromagnetic fields on health, noise pollution and the visual impact on rural landscapes. These issues are once again salie...Read more...

CEP discussion paper

Teacher value-added and gender gaps in educational outcomes

This paper uses rich administrative data from Chile to estimate teacher value added (TVA) on test scores and on an educational attainment index. We allow each teacher to have a different TVA for male and female students ...Read more...

CEP discussion paper

The organizational economics of school chains

We use the insights of firms' organizational economics to study school chains' organization. We match information on decentralization of activities for approximately 400 chains and 2,000 schools in England to student and...Read more...