Results

Blog

LSE Business Review:

New incentives for businesses to train their employees are needed for economic recovery from COVID-19

The need to retrain or upskill the workforce has become ever more urgent due to sharp changes in skills demand induced by the pandemic, write Jiaqi Li, Guglielmo Ventura and Anna Valero....Read more...

Blog

VoxEU:

Closing the gap between vocational and general education: University Technical Colleges in England

England introduced University Technical Colleges - hybrid education institutions which combine general and vocational education - in 2010. This column presents the results from the first evaluation of the causal effect o...Read more...

Blog

LSE Blogs:

What happened when parents lost their jobs during lockdown?

Many parents had to cope with losing their jobs or part of their income at the same time as they were forced to home school. How did this affect their children's learning and their mental health? Claudia Hupkau, Ingo Isp...Read more...

Blog

FE Week:

Why urgent support is needed to address UK skills deficit

New incentives are needed for businesses to train their employees for a post-Covid world, writes Guglielmo Ventura....Read more...

Blog

LSE British Politics and Policy:

Schools and England's second lockdown: further closures would have adverse effects on children and a wider effect on family life

Sandra McNally and Jo Blanden explain how school closures have negative effects on both children and parents, hindering educational outcomes, mental health, work, and general resilience....Read more...

Blog

LSE British Politics and Policy:

COVID-19 and social mobility: the public support key policies that will help limit widening inequalities in employment and education

Lee Elliot Major, Andrew Eyles, and Stephen Machin present new data around public support behind the implementation of job guarantees, the reform of A-level and GCSE exams in 2021, and the abolition of predicted grades f...Read more...

Blog

VoxEU:

The impact of public employment: evidence from West Germany's post-war capital Bonn

Raising the level of public employment is a frequently used policy instrument to support economically lagging regions. This column evaluates the impact of changes in public employment on private sector activity using the...Read more...

Blog

CVER blogs:

Stark contrast between pre- and post-16 provision in UTCs

At a time when Prime Minister Boris Johnson has put the government’s skills policy agenda in the spotlight, Guglielmo Ventura presents findings from his research seeking to understand whether UTCs were successful at br...Read more...

CEP Covid-19 analysis

Generation COVID: emerging work and education inequalities

The purpose of this brief paper is to present initial findings from the recently collected LSE-CEP Social Mobility survey, which was undertaken as part of our UKRI project ‘Generation COVID and Social Mobility: Evidence ...Read more...

CVER Research Paper

Closing the Gap Between Vocational and General Education? Evidence from University Technical Colleges in England

Some countries, notably those which have long had a weak history of vocational education like the UK and the US, have recently seen a rapid expansion of hybrid schools which provide both general and vocational education....Read more...

Blog

LSE Blogs:

Denied jobs and schooling, 'Generation COVID' faces a struggle to catch up

More than a tenth of young people have lost their jobs during the pandemic, and only 38% of pupils were getting the equivalent of a full day's schooling in lockdown. Lee Elliot Major (University of Exeter), Andrew Eyles ...Read more...

CEP discussion paper

Gender differences in tertiary education: what explains STEM participation?

The share of women achieving tertiary education has increased rapidly over time and now exceeds that of men in most OECD countries. However, women are severely under-represented in maths-intensive science fields, which a...Read more...

CVER Briefing Note

Post-18 education – who is taking the different routes and how much do they earn?

This paper describes the educational trajectories and labour market outcomes for people who completed their GCSEs between 2002 and 2006. Our long span of longitudinal data enables us to follow these individuals through t...Read more...

Submissions to parliamentary inquiries and government consultations

Employment and Covid-19

The Committee will examine the effects of the COVID-19 pandemic on the labour market and consider what urgent measures should be taken to protect and create jobs. It will also examine how the labour market may change as ...Read more...

Journal article

Education Economics:

Minority report: the impact of predicted grades on university admissions of disadvantaged groups

We study the UK's university application system, in which students apply based on predicted examination grades, rather than actual results. Using three years of UK university applications data we find that only 16% of ap...Read more...

CVER Research Paper

Where versus What: College Value-Added and Returns to Field of Study in Further Education

Enrolling in vocational education and training programs constitutes a natural response to the current dynamics of the labour market, which is being reshaped by routinisation, automation, and outsourcing. We estimate the ...Read more...

CEP discussion paper

Family background and the responses to higher SAT scores

Using discontinuities within the Swedish SAT system, we show that additional admission opportunities causally affect college choices. Students with high-educated parents change timing, colleges, and fields in ways that a...Read more...

CEP Covid-19 analysis

Covid-19 school shutdowns: what will they do to our children's education?

Evidence from unexpected temporary school closures and reduced instruction time suggests school closures will reduce educational achievement, both in the short and long term. Children from disadvantaged backgrounds are ...Read more...

Blog

LSE Business Review:

Covid-19 is increasing the divide in life chances between rich and poor

Covid-19 is increasing the divide in life chances between rich and poor Lee Elliot Major and Stephen Machin propose reforms and urgent actions to tackle economic and educational inequalities in the UK....Read more...

Blog

VoxEU:

COVID-19 and gender gaps: Latest evidence and lessons from the UK

The social distancing and lockdowns associated with the COVID-19 crisis has hit service sectors with frequent interactions between consumers and providers which cannot be done from home. At the same time, it has added ed...Read more...

CVER Research Paper

Gender and Socio-Economic Differences in STEM Uptake and Attainment

The underrepresentation of women in Science, Technology, Engineering and Maths (STEM) occupations is a world-wide phenomenon and a concern for policy makers. This is the case in the UK where a shortage of STEM skills is ...Read more...

CentrePiece article

In brief...Mismatched students and universities

Higher education has long been thought of as a tool to equalise opportunities. But according to research by Gill Wyness and colleagues, if we really want to improve the life chances of disadvantaged students, we need to ...Read more...

CEP election analysis

#GE2019Economists: the research evidence on key issues for voters in the 2019 UK General Election

The general election of 2019 was called after negotiations over how the UK should leave the European Union became increasingly tortuous. While Brexit may have been the trigger for the election, it was far from being the ...Read more...

CEP election analysis

Education and skills

Debates about how to improve education and skills are likely to be an important theme in the run-up to the general election. This briefing summarises evidence on education and skills from the Centre for Economic Performa...Read more...

CVER Briefing Note

Inequality in education and labour market participation of young people across English localities:An exploration based on Longitudinal Education Outcomes (LEO) data

Currently, 792,000 16-24-year olds in the UK – 11.5% of the age group – are Not in Education, Employment or Training (NEET), but not much is known about how this differs by local area. In this Briefing Note, we provide c...Read more...

CentrePiece article

In brief...The long-term effects of financial distress in childhood

Is there a relationship between childhood circumstances and outcomes later in life? Andrew Clark and colleagues consider the cognitive and non-cognitive consequences for young adults whose families experienced major fina...Read more...

CVER Research Paper

Socio-economic inequality and academic match among post-compulsory education participants

The study investigates the impact of socioeconomic background on the academic match of students in post-compulsory upper-secondary education making use of detailed individual-level linked administrative data from schools...Read more...

CEP discussion paper

Understanding day care enrolment gaps

We document day care enrolment gaps by family background in a country with a universal day care system (Germany). Research demonstrates that children of less educated or foreign-born parents can benefit the most from day...Read more...

CEP discussion paper

Inequalities in student to course match: evidence from linked administrative data

This paper examines inequalities in the match between student quality and university quality using linked administrative data from schools, universities and tax authorities. We analyse two measures of match at the univer...Read more...

CVER Research Paper

The value of progression in further education

In this study, we investigate the value of progression associated with different vocational qualifications disaggregated by subject area of study. Previous analyses of labour market outcomes by subject of study demonstra...Read more...

CVER Research Paper

Labour market outcomes disaggregated by subject area using the Longitudinal Education Outcomes (LEO) data

In this paper, we investigate the relationship between labour market outcomes and vocational qualifications disaggregated by subject area of study. Using individuals holding vocational qualifications in any subject at th...Read more...

Journal article

Journal of the European Economic Association:

The introduction of academy schools to England's education

This paper studies the origins of what has become one of the most radical and encompassing programmes of school reform seen in the recent past in advanced countries�the introduction of academy schools to English educat...Read more...

Journal article

Economics of Education Review:

The end of free college in England: Implications for enrolments, equity, and quality

Despite increasing financial pressures on higher education systems throughout the world, many governments remain resolutely opposed to the introduction of tuition fees, and some countries and states where tuition fees ha...Read more...

CentrePiece article

Healthy Minds: the positive impact of a new school curriculum

As the UK government prepares to make personal, social, health and economic (PSHE) education compulsory, a recent trial shows how these subjects can be taught successfully. Grace Lordan and Alistair McGuire evaluate the ...Read more...

Blog

CVER Blog:

Changing Aspirations and Outcomes in Post-16 Education

In this latest blog post, Steven McIntosh of University of Sheffield discusses CVER contributions to the recent Augar Review of Post-18 Education, and the findings that came out of that research. CVER have been contribut...Read more...

CVER Briefing Note

Post-16 Aspirations and Outcomes: Comparison of the LSYPE Cohorts

CVER was commissioned by the Department for Education to undertake research in support of the current Review of Post-18 Education (The Augar Review). This research brief summarises some of the key findings that came out ...Read more...

CEP discussion paper

Widening the high school curriculum to include soft skill training: impacts on health, behaviour, emotional wellbeing and occupational aspirations

From 2020 the health and relationships aspects of Personal, Social, Health and Economic Education will be compulsory in UK schools for adolescents. However less is known about how it can be taught in an effective manner....Read more...

CEP discussion paper

Education and geographical mobility: the role of the job surplus

Better-educated workers form many more long-distance job matches, and they move more quickly following local employment shocks. I argue this is a consequence of larger dispersion in wage offers, independent of geography....Read more...

Blog

LSE British Politics and Policy:

Childhood circumstances and young adult outcomes: the role of parental financial problems

Is there a relationship between childhood circumstances and outcomes later on in life? Andrew E. Clark, Conchita D’Ambrosio, and Marta Barazzetta consider the cognitive and non-cognitive consequences on young adults who ...Read more...

CVER Research Paper

A comparison of earnings related to higher level vocational/technical and academic education

Using rich administrative data for a full cohort of English secondary school leavers (2002/03 academic year), we compare earnings of people with higher vocational/technical qualifications to the earnings of degree holder...Read more...

Blog

CVER Blog:

Higher vocational education: An alternative to degrees?

A detailed picture of earnings effects of university degrees is emerging, but not much is known about the benefits of higher vocational education. A recent report by the IFS provides evidence on the extensive earnings b...Read more...

CEP discussion paper

Childhood circumstances and young adulthood outcomes: the role of mothers' financial problems

We here consider the cognitive and non-cognitive consequences on young adults of growing up with a mother who reported experiencing major financial problems. We use UK data from the Avon Longitudinal Study of Parents and...Read more...

Journal article

Economics of Education Review:

The Economic Impact of Universities: Evidence from Across the Globe

We develop a new dataset using UNESCO source materials on the location of nearly 15,000 universities in about 1,500 regions across 78 countries, some dating back to the 11th Century. We estimate fixed effects models at t...Read more...

CentrePiece article

Aid: it’s not just about the money

For more than a decade, CEP research associate Peter Boone and his colleagues at Effective Intervention have been running health and education programmes in some of the poorest parts of the world. As he recounts here, th...Read more...

CentrePiece article

Universities and industrial strategy in the UK

The UK’s higher education sector is a source of national strength with the potential to contribute to all areas of the government’s industrial strategy. Anna Valero and colleagues review the evidence on how the positive ...Read more...

CEP industrial strategy paper

Universities and industrial strategy in the UK: review of evidence and implications for policy

As producers of human capital, innovation and as large institutions in their own right, UK universities can make important contributions across the five foundations that underpin the government’s Industrial Strategy: peo...Read more...

Journal article

Journal of the European Economic Association:

Does additional spending help urban schools? An evaluation using boundary discontinuities

This study exploits spatial anomalies in school funding policy in England to provide new evidence on the impact of resources on student achievement in urban areas. Anomalies arise because the funding allocated to Local E...Read more...

Journal article

Journal of Public Economics:

Does competition from private surgical centres improve public hospitals’ performance? Evidence from the English National Health Service

This paper examines the impact of a government programme which facilitated the entry of for-profit surgical centres to compete against incumbent National Health Service hospitals in England. We examine the impact of comp...Read more...

CEP discussion paper

Teacher effectiveness and classroom composition

This paper studies how the effectiveness of teachers varies by classroom composition, combining random assignment of teachers with rich measures of teaching practices based on a popular teacher-evaluation protocol. We fi...Read more...

CEP industrial strategy paper

Do Apprenticeships Pay? Evidence for England

The importance of apprenticeships for early labour market transitions varies across countries and over time. In recent times, there has been a policy drive to increase the number of people undertaking apprenticeships in ...Read more...

CVER Research Paper

Do apprenticeships pay? Evidence for England

The importance of apprenticeships for early labour market transitions varies across countries and over time. In recent times, there has been a policy drive to increase the number of people undertaking apprenticeships in ...Read more...

CEP discussion paper

Who teaches the teachers? A RCT of peer-to-peer observation and feedback in 181 schools

It is well established that teachers are the most important in-school factor in determining student outcomes. However, to date there is scant robust quantitative research demonstrating that teacher training programs can ...Read more...

CentrePiece article

Higher education funding reforms in England

Reforms in higher education funding, which have taken England from offering free-of-charge, full-time undergraduate studies to being one of the most expensive systems in the OECD, have led to a reduction in the participa...Read more...

Blog

CVER Blog:

Missing the mark at GCSE English: the costly consequences of just failing to get a grade C

School students who narrowly fail to achieve a grade C in their GCSE English exam pay a high price, according to new research by Stephen Machin, Sandra McNally and Jenifer Ruiz-Valenzuela. Getting above or failing to re...Read more...

CVER Research Paper

Entry through the narrow door: the costs of just failing high stakes exams

In many countries, important thresholds in examinations act as a gateway to higher levels of education and/or good employment prospects. This paper examines the consequences of just failing a key high stakes national exa...Read more...

CVER Research Paper

Settling the counterfactual debate: Is there a preferable counterfactual when estimating the returns to vocational qualifications?

Using information from the Longitudinal Education Outcomes (LEO) data set, it is now possible to compare the characteristics and estimates for learners with different qualifications encompassing both types of counterfact...Read more...

Journal article

Fiscal Studies:

Academies 2 - the new batch: the changing nature of academy schools in England

The English education system has undergone large-scale restructuring through the introduction of academy schools. The most salient feature of these schools is that, despite remaining part of the state sector, they operat...Read more...

CentrePiece article

Is there a payoff to apprenticeships for young people?

As part of an effort to transform the UK’s post-16 educational landscape, the government is aiming for a massive increase in the number of apprenticeships. Research by Chiara Cavaglia, Sandra McNally and Guglielmo Ventur...Read more...

CVER Briefing Note

Further analysis of the earnings differentials associated with BTECs

We analyse whether there is an earnings differential associated with having a BTEC qualification as a young person’s highest qualification. Previous analyses of wage differentials using survey data on a sample of all wor...Read more...

CEP discussion paper

Higher education funding reforms: a comprehensive analysis of educational and labour market outcomes in England

This paper investigates the impact of changes in the funding of higher education in England on students’ choices and outcomes. Over the last two decades – through three major reforms in 1998, 2006 and 2012 – undergraduat...Read more...

Journal article

Journal of the Royal Statistical Society. Series A: Statistics in Society:

‘Making it count’: incentives, student effort and performance

The paper examines how incentives to participate in on-line assessments (quizzes) affect students' effort and performance. Our identification strategy exploits within-student weekly variation in incentives to attempt on-...Read more...

CEP discussion paper

Autonomous schools and strategic pupil exclusion

This paper studies whether pupil performance gains achieved by autonomous schools – specifically academy schools in England – can be attributed to the strategic exclusion of poorly performing pupils. In England there hav...Read more...

Journal article

American Journal of Health Economics:

Do you have to win it to fix it?: A longitudinal study of lottery winners and their health-care demand

We exploit lottery wins to investigate the effects of exogenous changes to individuals' income on the utilization of health-care services, and the choice between private and public health care in the United Kingdom. Our ...Read more...

CEP discussion paper

Oil discoveries and education spending in the Postbellum South

This paper studies the effect of oil wealth on the provision of education in the early 20th century United States. Using information on the location and discovery of major oil fields, I find that oil wealth increased loc...Read more...

CVER Briefing Note

Effectiveness of CEOs in the public sector: evidence from further education institutions

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CEP discussion paper

The social origins of inventors

In this paper, we merge three datasets - individual income data, patenting data, and IQ data - to analyze the deterninants of an individual’s probability of inventing. We find that: (i) parental income matters even after...Read more...

CEP discussion paper

It's time to learn: understanding the differences in returns to instruction time

As hours per day are inherently a limited resource, increasing daily instruction time reduces the amount of time pupils can dedicate to other activities outside school. We study how the effect of longer school days on ac...Read more...

CVER Research Paper

Building apprentices’ skills in the workplace: Car Service in Germany, the UK and Spain

This paper analyses how employers in three countries, Germany, the UK and Spain experience and view apprenticeship. The focus is a single occupation – Vehicle Maintenance and Repair (Car Service) based on case studies an...Read more...

Blog

CVER Blog:

Do apprenticeships pay?

The government aims to massively increase the number of apprenticeships and to make this a more important part of the post-16 educational landscape. In our research - published today by the Sutton Trust - we investigate ...Read more...

CVER Research Paper

Apprenticeships for Young People in England: Is there a Payoff?

In recent times, there has been a policy drive to increase the number of people undertaking apprenticeships in England. In this paper we examine the characteristics of young people who start an apprenticeship and we look...Read more...

CVER Research Paper

The Payoff to Vocational Qualifications: Reconciling Estimates from Survey and Administrative Data

This paper takes as a starting point the wage/earnings differentials associated with vocational qualifications that have been estimated in the literature. Two distinct parts of that literature are identified, using surve...Read more...

Journal article

Journal of Public Economics:

Unexpected school reform: academisation of primary schools in England

The UK change of government in 2010 provoked a large structural change in the English education landscape. Unexpectedly, the new government offered primary schools the chance to have "the freedom and the power to take co...Read more...

CVER Research Paper

The earnings differentials associated with vocational education and training using the Longitudinal Education Outcomes data

For the first time, the matched Longitudinal Education Outcomes has been made available for analysis of qualification attainment and labour market outcomes in England. Using comprehensive information from different schoo...Read more...

CEP discussion paper

The end of free college in England: implications for quality, enrolments and equity

Despite increasing financial pressures on higher education systems throughout the world, many governments remain resolutely opposed to the introduction of tuition fees, and some countries and states where tuition fees ha...Read more...

Submissions to parliamentary inquiries and government consultations

CVER Submission to Economic Affairs Committee - Economics of higher, further and technical education inquiry

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CEP discussion paper

Healthy business? Managerial education and management in healthcare

We investigate the link between hospital performance and managerial education by collecting a large database of management practices and skills in hospitals across nine countries. We find that hospitals that are closer t...Read more...

CVER Research Paper

The longer the better? The impact of the 2012 apprenticeship reform in England on achievement and other outcomes

In this paper, we estimate the effect of a reform of apprenticeships in England in 2012, which changed the duration for Intermediate Apprenticeships in many industries, while other sectors already exceeded the incoming m...Read more...

CVER Briefing Note

An analysis of the duration and achievement of apprenticeships in England

For the cohort of all 516,880 intermediate and advanced apprenticeships starting in England in 2011/12, we find that one third were withdrawn and a further 10 per cent were not completed within 36 months. We find that c...Read more...

CentrePiece article

The end of free college in England

A growing movement in the United States is promoting 'free college' for young people. Richard Murphy, Judith Scott Clayton and Gill Wyness ask what can be learned about the likely outcomes from England's move in the oppo...Read more...

CEP election analysis

#GE2017Economists: The Research Evidence on Key Issues for Voters in the 2017 UK General Election

The unexpected UK general election of 2017 was intended to be all about Brexit, one that will give the incoming government a mandate to negotiate the terms of the UK’s exit from the European Union (EU). But many other pu...Read more...

CEP election analysis

Education and Skills: The UK Policy Agenda

The UK’s overall school budget has been protected in real terms but does not provide for funding per pupil to increase in line with inflation. Because pupil numbers are increasing, large falls in expenditure per pupil ar...Read more...

CVER Briefing Note

The incidence of publicly funded training in England

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CVER Briefing Note

The Decision to Undertake an Apprenticeship: A Case Study

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CVER Research Paper

Young people in low level vocational education: characteristics, trajectories and labour market outcomes

Although 10% of school leavers in England start low level vocational education (normally below Level 2, ‘BL2’), very little is known about the characteristics of learners, their participation in vocational education and ...Read more...

CentrePiece article

In brief... What can be done to help low-achieving teenagers?

Young people who drop out of school are far more likely to experience unemployment and poverty than their peers. Experimental research by Eric Maurin and colleagues in deprived neighbourhoods of Paris shows the effective...Read more...

CEP report

UK growth: a new chapter

The UK Economy is at a critical juncture. Leaving the EU creates economic challenges that necessitate widespread policy change. But this also generates an opportunity to tackle some of the long-standing challenges which ...Read more...

CentrePiece article

Studying science: the impact of school curriculum on degree choice

An educational reform in England in 2004 that entitled higher ability school students to take the so-called ‘triple science’course contributed a third of the increased share of STEM graduates in England 2005-10. That is ...Read more...

CentrePiece article

Primary academies in England

Attendance at a primary academy leads to no discernible improvement in pupils’ test scores, according to research by Andrew Eyles, Stephen Machin and Sandra McNally. This suggests that further extension of the academies ...Read more...

Journal article

Journal of Human Capital:

Student awareness of costs and benefits of educational decisions: effects of an information campaign

Many students appear to leave full-time education too soon, despite the possibility of high returns from further investment in their education. One contributory factor may be insufficient information about the potential ...Read more...

CVER Research Paper

Vocational vs. General Education and Employment over the Life-Cycle: New Evidence from PIAAC

It has been argued that vocational education facilitates the school-to-work transition but reduces later adaptability to changing environments. Using the recent international PIAAC data, we confirm such a trade-off over ...Read more...

CVER Research Paper

Labour Market Returns to Vocational Qualifications in the Labour Force Survey

This report uses data from the Labour Force Survey covering the period 1997-2015, to estimate wage premiums, or returns, to acquiring vocational qualifications. Different specifications of the wage equations are estimate...Read more...

CentrePiece article

Post-16 educational choices in England

Well under half of young people in England complete A-levels, yet the baffling array of qualifications available for their peers is rarely discussed. Sandra McNally, director of the newly established Centre for Vocationa...Read more...

Journal article

Labour Economics:

School reforms and pupil performance

The relationship between school reforms, specifically those involving the introduction of new school types, and pupil performance is studied. The particular context is the introduction of academy schools in England, but ...Read more...

Journal article

Oxford Bulletin of Economics and Statistics:

Peer effects: evidence from secondary school transition in England

We estimate the effect of peers' prior achievement on student progress in secondary school, using administrative data on four cohorts of students in England. Students leaving primary for secondary school experience a big...Read more...

CEP discussion paper

STEM graduates and secondary school curriculum: does early exposure to science matter?

Increasing the number of Science, Technology, Engineering and Math (STEM) university graduates is considered a key element for long-term productivity and competitiveness in the global economy. Still, little is known abou...Read more...

CVER Research Paper

Post-compulsory education in England: choices and implications

Most students do not follow the 'academic track' (i.e. A-levels) after leaving school and only about a third of students go to university before the age of 20. Yet, progression routes for the majority that do not take th...Read more...

CEP discussion paper

Powering education

More than 1.3 billion people worldwide have no access to electricity and this has first-order effects on several development dimensions. In this paper we focus on the link between access to light and education. We random...Read more...

CentrePiece article

in brief... Children's reading: evaluating a new teaching method

Children at risk of struggling with their reading get long-term benefits from ‘synthetic phonics’, the current favoured method among education policy-makers in England. The benefits for disadvantaged pupils justify the f...Read more...

CEP discussion paper

Does competition from private surgical centres improve public hospitals' performance? Evidence from the English National Health Service

This paper examines the impact of competition from government-facilitated entry of private, specialty surgical centres on the efficiency and case mix of incumbent public hospitals within the English NHS. We exploit the f...Read more...

Journal article

The Economic Journal:

Universal pre-school education: the case of public funding with private provision

This article studies the effect of free pre-school education on child outcomes in primary school. We exploit the staggered implementation of free part-time pre-school for three year olds across Local Education Authoritie...Read more...

CEP discussion paper

State capacity and public goods: institutional change, human capital and growth in early modern Germany

What are the origins and consequences of the state as a provider of public goods? We study legal reforms that established mass public education and increased state capacity in German cities during the 1500s. These fundam...Read more...

Submissions to parliamentary inquiries and government consultations

Response to the Sub-Committee on Education, Skills and the Economy for the Apprenticeships Inquiry

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CentrePiece article

In brief... The rewards for getting a good degree

It pays to study hard at university, according to research by Shqiponja Telhaj and colleagues. Their study finds that there is a significant hourly wage premium for getting a first or upper second. For graduates more tha...Read more...

CentrePiece article

Crime and violence in Latin America and the Caribbean: towards evidence-based policies

Latin America and the Caribbean account for a third of the world’s homicides but under 10% of the world’s population. What’s more, homicide rates in the region are higher than they should be given countries’ levels of in...Read more...

Submissions to parliamentary inquiries and government consultations

Response to the Sub-Committee on Education, Skills and the Economy for the Careers Advice Inquiry

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CEP discussion paper

Testing means-tested aid

Inequalities do not end once students enter higher education. Yet, the majority of papers on the effectiveness of higher education aid examine its impact on college enrolment. In this paper, we provide evidence on the ca...Read more...

CEP discussion paper

The youngest get the pill: ADHD misdiagnosis and the production of education in Germany

Attention Deficit/Hyperactivity Disorder (ADHD) is a leading diagnosed health condition among children in many developed countries but the causes underlying these high levels of ADHD remain highly controversial. Recent r...Read more...

CEP discussion paper

Graduate returns, degree class premia and higher education expansion in the UK

We investigate the extent to which graduate returns vary according to the class of degree achieved by UK university students and examine changes over time in estimated degree class premia. Using a variety of complementar...Read more...

SERC/Urban and Spatial Programme Discussion Paper

ICT and Education: Evidence from Student Home Addresses

Governments are making it a priority to upgrade information and communication technologies (ICT) with the aim to increase available internet connection speeds. This paper presents a new empirical strategy to estimate the...Read more...

CEP discussion paper

Crime, compulsory schooling laws and education

Do compulsory schooling laws reduce crime? Previous evidence for the U.S. from the 1960s and 1970s suggests they do, primarily working through their effect on educational attainment to generate a causal impact on crime. ...Read more...

CEP discussion paper

New media, competition and growth: European cities After Gutenberg

This research studies how variations in competition and in media content characterized the use and impact of Gutenberg's printing press technology during the European Renaissance. The research constructs annual firm-leve...Read more...

CentrePiece article

In brief... Making a difference in education

A new book by Sandra McNally and colleagues surveys the evidence on which policies and practices are working in UK schools....Read more...

CEP discussion paper

ICT and education: evidence from student home addresses

Governments are making it a priority to upgrade information and communication technologies (ICT) with the aim to increase available internet connection speeds. This paper presents a new strategy to estimate the causal ef...Read more...

CEP election analysis

#ElectionEconomics: The Research Evidence on Key Issues for Voters in the 2015 UK General Election

Please see the CEP #ElectionEconomics report(Paper 1)and the Executive Summary (Paper 2) that cover all the election 2015 briefings, discussing the research evidence on 15 of the UK's key policy battlegrounds: immigratio...Read more...

Book

Making a Difference in Education

This book discusses whether education policy has really been guided by the evidence, and explores why the failings of Britain's educational system have been so resistant to change, as well as the success stories th...Read more...

CEP election analysis

Paying for Higher Education

The UK Higher Education sector has changed radically as a result of Coalition Policies – most obviously through the dramatic increase in the tuition fee cap from £3,375 to £9,000 per year. However, the greatest issue ari...Read more...

CEP election analysis

Schools: The Evidence on Academies, Resources and Pupil Performance

England’s performance in international tests of student achievement continues to be disappointing. Further improvement is essential not only for students’ themselves but also for economic growth. This briefing considers ...Read more...

CEP discussion paper

Do you have To win it to fix it? A longitudinal study of lottery winners and their health care demand

We exploit lottery wins to investigate the effects of exogenous changes to individuals' income on health care demand in the United Kingdom. This strategy allows us to estimate lottery income elasticities for a range of h...Read more...

CEP discussion paper

Why are higher skilled workers more mobile geographically? The role of the job surplus

The skill gap in geographical mobility is entirely driven by workers who report moving for a new job. A natural explanation lies in the large expected surplus accruing to skilled job matches. Just as large surpluses ease...Read more...

CEP election analysis

Immigration and the UK Labour Market

During periods of strong economic growth, migration is and has always been important for filling gaps in the labour market. Perceptions do not seem to line up with the existing academic evidence. On balance, the evidence...Read more...

CEP discussion paper

Schooling, nation building and industrialization: a Gellnerian approach

We model a two-region country where value is created through bilateral production between masses and elites (bourgeois and landowners). Industrialization requires the elites to finance schools and the masses to attend th...Read more...

CentrePiece article

Educational efficiency: value for money in public spending on schools

Which national education systems deliver the best value for money? Peter Dolton and colleagues rank 30 of the world’s richest countries based on their expenditure on teacher costs (which account for 80% of education budg...Read more...

CentrePiece article

Improving education in two extremely poor regions: triumph and tragedy

For the past few years, CEP research associate Peter Boone and his colleagues at Effective Intervention have been running primary school education projects in the rural villages of Andhra Pradesh and Guinea-Bissau. Their...Read more...

CEP discussion paper

Education and Health Knowledge: Evidence from UK Compulsory Schooling Reforms

We investigate if there is a causal link between education and health knowledge using data from the 1984/85 and 1991/92 waves of the UK Health and Lifestyle Survey (HALS). Uniquely, the survey asks respondents what they ...Read more...

SERC/Urban and Spatial Programme Discussion Paper

Neighbourhood Turnover and Teenage Attainment

Theories about neighbours’ influence on children based on social capital, cohesion and disorganisation stress the importance of neighbourhood stability. However, amongst the vast number of studies on the effect of neighb...Read more...

CEP policy analysis

Immigration, the European Union and the UK Labour Market

During periods of strong economic growth, migration is and has always been important for filling gaps in the labour market. On balance, the evidence for the UK labour market suggests that fears about adverse consequences...Read more...

CentrePiece article

In brief: Does management matter in schools?

Better school management is associated with better pupil achievement, according to CEP analysis of the quality of management practices in schools in a range of developed and developing countries. Renata Lemos notes that ...Read more...

CentrePiece article

Everybody needs good neighbours?

There are large disparities between the achievements, behaviour and aspirations of children in different neighbourhoods – but does this mean that the place where you grow up determines your later life outcomes? Steve Gib...Read more...

CentrePiece article

Economics of higher education

In brief: Economics of higher education...Read more...

CEP discussion paper

Childhood Sporting Activities and Adult Labour-Market Outcomes

We here ask whether sports participation at school is positively correlated with adult labour-market outcomes. There are many potential channels for this effect, although, as usual, identifying a causal relationship is d...Read more...

CentrePiece article

Does school spending matter?

Increases in resources for schools are typically more effective in disadvantaged schools and for disadvantaged pupils. That is one of the many findings of a review by Steve Gibbons and Sandra McNally of the research evid...Read more...

SERC/Urban and Spatial Programme Discussion Paper

Student Satisfaction, League Tables and University Applications

We investigate the impact of information about student satisfaction on university choice, using data from the UK’s National Student Survey (NSS) and on applications to undergraduate degree courses. We show that the NSS h...Read more...

CEP discussion paper

The Effects of Resources Across School Phases: A Summary of Recent Evidence

This report provides an overview and discussion of the past decade of academic evidence on the causal effects of resources in schooling on students’ outcomes. Early evidence lacked good strategies for estimating the effe...Read more...

CentrePiece article

The UK's 'riddle of peacefulness': what explains falling crime?

There has been a substantial fall in rates of property theft and violent crime in the UK. The author surveys a series of CEP studies that shed light on this transformation - what BBC home editor Mark Easton has labelled ...Read more...

CentrePiece article

Education in Scotland: performance in a devolved policy area

As the people of Scotland consider their vote in next year's referendum, what evidence is there that the nation can succeed 'on its own'? Gill Wyness and colleagues explore how Scotland compares with the rest of the UK i...Read more...

Journal article

Educational Research:

Educational attainment across the UK nations: performance, inequality and evidence

Political devolution occurred in the UK in 1998-99, following many years in which some degree of policy administration had been devolved to the four nations. Since devolution, all four countries of the UK have pursued in...Read more...

CEP discussion paper

Explaining cross-racial differences in the educational gender gap

The sizable gender gap in college enrolment, especially among African Americans, constitutes a puzzling empirical regularity that may have serious consequences on marriage markets, male labor force participation and the ...Read more...

CEP report

Education in a Devolved Scotland: A Quantitative Analysis

Education is an area that is highly devolved in the UK, and the fact that all four constituent countries have pursued very different policies in the recent past provides a good testing ground to undertake a comparative r...Read more...

Journal article

Journal of Urban Economics:

Valuing school quality using boundary discontinuities

Existing research shows that house prices respond to local school quality as measured by average test scores. However, higher test scores could signal higher academic value-added or higher ability, more sought-after inta...Read more...

CEP discussion paper

The Surprisingly Dire Situation of Children's Education in Rural West Africa: Results from the CREO Study in Guinea-Bissau

We conducted a survey covering 20% of villages with 200-1000 population in rural Guinea-Bissau. We interviewed household heads, care-givers of children, and their teachers and schools. We analysed results from 9,947 chil...Read more...

CEP discussion paper

When the Cat is Near, the Mice Won't Play: The Effect of External Examiners in Italian Schools

We use a natural experiment to show that the presence of an external examiner has both a direct and an indirect negative effect on the performance of monitored classes in standardized educational tests. The direct effect...Read more...

SERC/Urban and Spatial Programme Discussion Paper

Access All Areas? The Impact of Fees and Background on Student Demand for Postgraduate Higher Education in the UK

This paper analyses participation in postgraduate higher education in the UK at the micro-level makes several contributions to the literature. Firstly, it describes trends in postgraduate participation in the UK. Secondl...Read more...

CEP report

Investing for Prosperity: Skills, Infrastructure and Innovation

What institutions and policies are needed to sustain UK economic growth in the dynamic world economy of the twentyfirst century? After years of inadequate investment in skills, infrastructure and innovation, there are lo...Read more...

CentrePiece article

Are public sector employees overcompensated?

Alexander Danzer and Peter Dolton use the concept of 'total reward' to assess whether public sector pay and pensions are too high relative to the private sector....Read more...

CentrePiece article

Big ideas: valuing schooling through house prices

Steve Gibbons describes the development of CEP research showing how much house prices are boosted by the quality of local schools...Read more...

SERC/Urban and Spatial Programme Discussion Paper

Trade Liberalisation Does Not Always Raise Wage Premia: Evidence from Ugandan Districts

The process of economic integration over the past two decades has been accompanied by an expanding income wedge between skilled and unskilled workers in many developing countries. This was also the case for Ugandan wage ...Read more...

CEP policy analysis

Immigration and the UK Labour Market: The latest evidence from economic research

During periods of strong economic growth, migration is and has always been important for filling gaps in the labour market. On balance, the evidence for the UK labour market suggests that fears about the consequences of ...Read more...

SERC/Urban and Spatial Programme Discussion Paper

The Effect of Public Sector Employment on Local Labour Markets

This paper considers the impact of public sector employment on local labour markets. Using English data at the Local Authority level for 2003 to 2007 we find that public sector employment has no identifiable effect on to...Read more...

Journal article

The Journal of Human Resources:

The effect of tracking students by ability into different schools

The tracking of pupils by ability into elite and non-elite schools represents a controversial policy in many countries. There is no consensus on how large the elite track should be and little agreement on the effects of ...Read more...

CentrePiece article

In brief: Language barriers? The impact of non-native English speakers in the classroom

In recent years there has been an increase in the number of children going to school in England who do not speak English as a first language. We investigate whether this has an impact on the educational outcomes of nativ...Read more...

CentrePiece article

In brief: Urban schools: does money make a difference?

This research paper is motivated by a long tail at the bottom of the educational distribution, educational inequality between those from high and low socio-economic groups and the question as to what role an increase in ...Read more...

Journal article

Journal of Labor Economics:

The good, the bad, and the average: evidence on ability peer effects in schools

We study ability peer effects in English secondary schools using data on four cohorts of students taking age-14 national tests and measuring peers' ability by prior achievements at age 11. Our identification is based on ...Read more...

CEE/Education and skills discussion paper

Non-Native Speakers Of English In The Classroom: What Are The Effects On Pupil Performance?

In recent years there has been an increase in the number of children going to school in England who do not speak English as a first language. We investigate whether this has an impact on the educational outcomes of nativ...Read more...

CentrePiece article

Pupils' progress: how children's perceptions influence their efforts

What is the impact of a pupil's perceptions of how their teachers will treat them on their motivation, efforts and educational achievements? To explore this question, Amine Ouazad and Lionel Page have conducted an experi...Read more...

CentrePiece article

School inspections: can we trust Ofsted reports?

Ofsted inspections of schools have been a central feature of state education in England for nearly 20 years. Research by Iftikhar Hussain explores the validity of the school ratings that Ofsted produces, the impact of a ...Read more...

CEE/Education and skills discussion paper

Do Public Colleges in Developing Countries Provide Better Education than Private ones? Evidence from General Education Sector in India

Public college graduates in many developing countries outperform graduates of private ones on the college exit exams. This has often been attributed to the cutting edge education provided in public colleges. However, pub...Read more...

SERC/Urban and Spatial Programme Discussion Paper

Does Skilled Migration Foster Innovative Performance? Evidence from British Local Areas

What is the effect of an increase in the stock of human capital on the innovative performance of a local economy? This paper tests the hypothesis of a causal link between an increase in the average stock of human capital...Read more...

CEE/Education and skills discussion paper

An Evaluation of “Special Educational Needs” Programmes in England

The need for education to help every child rather than focus on average attainment has become a more central part of the policy agenda in the US and the UK. Remedial programmes are often difficult to evaluate because par...Read more...

CEP discussion paper

Gender Gaps Across Countries and Skills: Supply, Demand and the Industry Structure

The gender wage gap varies widely across countries and across skill groups within countries. Interestingly, there is a positive cross-country correlation between the unskilled- to-skilled gender wage gap and the correspo...Read more...

CEP discussion paper

The Role of Educational Quality and Quantity in the Process of Economic Development

We develop a theory of human capital investment to study the channels through which students react to school quality when deciding on investments in secondary education and above, and to study how educational quality aff...Read more...

CEP discussion paper

Mass Education or a Minority Well Educated Elite in the Process of Development: the Case of India

This paper analyses whether in developing countries mass education is more growth enhancing than to have a minority well educated elite. Using the Indian census data as a benchmark and enrollment rates at different level...Read more...

CentrePiece article

Teachers' Pay and Pupil Performance

If you pay peanuts, do you get monkeys? If teachers were better paid and higher up the national income distribution, would there be an improvement in pupil performance? Peter Dolton and Oscar Marcenaro-Gutierrez examine ...Read more...

CentrePiece article

The Boom in Postgraduate Education and Its Impact on Wage Inequality

Growing numbers of university students in Britain and the United States are staying on after their first degrees to invest in a postgraduate qualification. Joanne Lindley and Stephen Machin document this trend and assess...Read more...

CentrePiece article

In brief... House Prices and School Quality: Evidence from State and Private Education in Paris

It is now widely understood that the quality of state schools in a neighbourhood has an impact on local house prices. Analysing data for Paris, Gabrielle Fack and Julien Grenet have looked deeper into this link by explor...Read more...

CentrePiece article

Young People Without Qualifications: How 'Headline Numbers' Shape Policy and Aspiration

England's most widely used indicator of young people's education and labour market status is the NEET category - 'not in education, employment or training'. Making comparisons with how France and Germany measure school l...Read more...

CEP discussion paper

Fear and the Response to Terrorism: An Economic Analysis

This paper offers a rational approach to the economics and psychology of fear and provides empirical evidence that supports our theory. We explicitly consider both the impact of danger on emotions and the distortive effe...Read more...

CEP discussion paper

The Minimum Wage and Inequality - The Effects of Education and Technology

While there has been intense debate in the empirical literature about the effects of minimum wages on inequality in the US, its general equilibrium effects have been given little attention. In order to quantify the full ...Read more...

CEP discussion paper

Rising wage inequality and postgraduate education

This paper considers what has hitherto been a relatively neglected subject in the wage inequality literature, albeit one that has been becoming more important over time, namely the role played by increases in postgraduat...Read more...

CEE/Education and skills discussion paper

Does Additional Spending Help Urban Schools? An Evaluation Using Boundary Discontinuities

Improvement of educational attainment in schools in urban, disadvantaged areas is an important priority for policy – particularly in countries like England which have a long tail at the bottom of the educational distribu...Read more...

CEE/Education and skills discussion paper

From Grants to Loans and Fees: The Demand for Post-Compulsory Education in England and Wales from 1955 to 2008

The UK has progressively moved from a Higher Education (HE) system which is funded at the tax payers’ expense to one which is funded by individual participants (and their parents) by scrapping student grants, introducing...Read more...

SERC/Urban and Spatial Programme Discussion Paper

Does Additional Spending Help Urban Schools? An Evaluation Using Boundary Discontinuities

Improvement of educational attainment in schools in urban, disadvantaged areas is an important priority for policy – particularly in countries like England which have a long tail at the bottom of the educational distribu...Read more...

CEP discussion paper

A Model for the Delivery of Evidence-Based PSHE (Personal Wellbeing) in Secondary Schools

Personal Social Health and Economic (PSHE) education is a non-statutory school subject designed to facilitate the delivery of a number of key competencies relevant to health, safety and wellbeing. As well as contributing...Read more...

CEE/Education and skills discussion paper

The Impact of Tuition Fees and Support on University Participation in the UK

Understanding how policy can affect university participation is important for understanding how governments can promote human capital accumulation. In this paper, we estimate the separate impacts of tuition fees and main...Read more...

Journal article

Journal of Labor Economics:

Faith primary schools: better schools or better pupils?

We estimate the causal effect of attending a state Faith school on primary education achievement in England using administrative student-level data and implementing various strategies to control for students' selection i...Read more...

SERC/Urban and Spatial Programme Discussion Paper

Whether to Hire Local Contract Teachers? Trade-off Between Skills and Preferences in India

Whether to hire teachers locally on a contract basis, or via competitive examinations as government officials, is a major policy question in developing countries. We use a Discrete Choice Experiment to assess the job pre...Read more...

CentrePiece article

Fees and loathing: higher education finance and university participation

With the UK's cap on tuition fees due to rise to £9,000, Gill Wyness looks at the impact of past fee increases on young people's decisions to go to university....Read more...

Journal article

The Economic Journal:

The crime reducing effect of education

In this article, we study the crime reducing potential of education, presenting causal statistical estimates based upon a law that changed the compulsory school leaving age in England and Wales. We frame the analysis in ...Read more...

External publication

The Effect of Tracking Students by Ability into Different Schools: A Natural Experiment - FEEM Working Paper

The tracking of pupils by ability into elite and non-elite schools represents a controversial policy in many countries. There is no consensus on how large the elite track should be and little agreement on the effects of ...Read more...

CEP discussion paper

Did Vietnam Veterans Get Sicker in the 1990s? The Complicated Effects of Military Service on Self-Reported Health

The veterans disability compensation (VDC) program, which provides a monthly stipend to disabled veterans, is the third largest American disability insurance program. Since the late 1990s, VDC growth has been driven prim...Read more...

Blog

LSE British Politics and Policy:

Academy schools under Labour combated disadvantage and increased pupil achievement: the coalition’s new policy may exacerbate existing inequalities

With the recent accusation that Michael Gove has been sending ‘mixed messages’ over academy schools, it is clear that the policy is still very controversial. Stephen Machin and James Vernoit take a step back and compar...Read more...

CentrePiece article

Academy schools: who benefits?

Stephen Machin and James Vernoit argue there has been a U-turn in academy schools policy under the new government...Read more...

CentrePiece article

In brief: The state of apprenticeships

Hilary Steedman finds that the provision of apprenticeships in the UK lags behind other countries...Read more...

CEE/Education and skills discussion paper

When do Better Schools Raise Housing Prices? Evidence from Paris Public and Private Schools

In this paper, we investigate how housing prices react to the quality of education offered by neighbouring public and private schools. The organization of secondary schooling in the city of Paris, which combines residenc...Read more...

Submissions to parliamentary inquiries and government consultations

BIS - Financing the Private Sector Recovery

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CEP report

The State of Apprenticeship in 2010: International Comparisons - Australia, Austria, England, France, Germany, Ireland, Sweden, Switzerland. A Report for the Apprenticeship Ambassadors Network.

Forward by Sir Roy Gardner (Chairman, Compass Group plc; Chairman, Apprenticeship Ambassadors Network) August 2010: I am pleased to commend this report, commissioned by the Apprenticeship Ambassadors Network, of which I ...Read more...

SERC/Urban and Spatial Programme Discussion Paper

Geography or Economics? A Micro-Level Analysis of the Determinants of Degree Choice in the Context of Regional Economic Disparities in the UK

The importance of human capital to the economic performance of a national, regional or local economy is now well established. Labour markets are thought to reward individuals in proportion to their marginal productivity ...Read more...

Blog

LSE British Politics and Policy:

LSE Centre for Economic Performance – A Note on Academy School Policy

The Academies programme3 was first introduced by the Labour government in September 2002, with the stated aim of improving the educational outcomes of some of the most disadvantaged pupils in English secondary schools. T...Read more...

CEE/Education and skills special paper

Research on the Intergenerational Links in the Every Child Matters Outcomes.Report to the Department of Children, Schools and Families

The Every Child Matters (ECM) agenda was introduced in the UK, as a policy aiming to improve child outcomes along five broad areas. The categories are Be Healthy, Stay Safe, Enjoy and Achieve, Make a Positive Contributio...Read more...

CEE/Education and skills special paper

The Determinants of Non-Cognitive and Cognitive Schooling Outcomes. Report to the Department of Children, Schools and Families

The Centre for the Economics of Education was asked to investigate the factors that influence a range of children's academic and non-academic outcomes, including their enjoyment of school, whether they take unauthorised ...Read more...

CEE/Education and skills special paper

The Interdependence and Determinants of Childhood Outcomes: The Relevance for Policy. Report to the Department of Children, Schools and Families

The Centre for the Economics of Education was asked to bring together a wide range of academic evidence (primarily England-based) to investigate the extent to which academic and non-academic childhood outcomes are comple...Read more...

CentrePiece article

In brief: The educational background of postgrad students

Has the boom in postgraduate courses in the UK over recent years had a negative impact on intergenerational mobility? Research by Stephen Machin and Richard Murphy suggests that there is a small but significant imbalance...Read more...

CentrePiece article

Making the UK's aid budget work better

All the UK's major parties agree on ring-fencing foreign aid spending at current levels, even while the country's dire financial situation requires sharp cuts to other budgets. Peter Boone draws on the evidence on aid ef...Read more...

CentrePiece article

In brief: Producing superstars for the economic World Cup

Most countries' education policies make raising average student performance their priority. Yet just as in the football World Cup, the quality of the top performers is the key to competing successfully at the global leve...Read more...

CEE/Education and skills special paper

CEE Special Report: The Children's Workforce: A Data Scoping Study. A Report for the Department of Children, School and Family (DCSF)

There has been much policy interest on the theme of children's services in recent years. For example, the 1998 National Child Strategy explicitly aims to ensure good quality, affordable childcare for children aged 0 to 1...Read more...

CEP policy analysis

A Note on Academy School Policy

The Academies programme set up under the Labour government, beginning in 2002, has so far given Academy status to 203 English secondary schools. These schools were more significantly disadvantaged in terms of pre-Academy...Read more...

CEP discussion paper

The Crime Reducing Effect of Education

In this paper, we present evidence on empirical connections between crime and education, using various data sources from Britain. A robust finding is that criminal activity is negatively associated with higher levels of ...Read more...

CEE/Education and skills discussion paper

The Changing Economic Advantage From Private School

Despite its relatively small size, the private school sector plays a prominent role in British society. This paper focuses on changing wage and education differentials between privately educated and state educated indivi...Read more...

CEP election analysis

CEP Election Analysis 2010 - The complete Series, discussing research on some of the key policy battlegrounds of the 2010 General Election

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CEP election analysis

Evaluating Education Policies: The Evidence from Economic Research

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SERC/Urban and Spatial Programme Discussion Paper

Moving into the Projects: Social Housing Neighbourhoods and School Performance in England

This study estimates the effect of living in a very deprived neighbourhood, as identified by a high density of social housing, on the educational attainment of fourteen years old (9th grade) students in England. Neighbou...Read more...

CEP discussion paper

The Economic Situation of First- and Second-Generation Immigrants in France, Germany and the United Kingdom

A central concern about immigration is the integration into the labour market, not only of the first generation, but also of subsequent generations. Little comparative work exists for Europe’s largest economies. France, ...Read more...

CEE/Education and skills discussion paper

The Century of Education

This paper presents a historical database on educational attainment in 74 countries for the period 1870-2010, using perpetual inventory methods before 1960 and then the Cohen and Soto (2007) database. The correlation bet...Read more...

CEE/Education and skills discussion paper

Length of Compulsory Education and Voter Turnout - Evidence from a Staged Reform

In this study, a long-term impact of additional schooling at the lower end of the educational distribution is measured on voter turnout. Schooling is instrumented with a staged Norwegian school reform, which increased mi...Read more...

CEP occasional paper

Do Private Equity Owned Firms Have Better Management Practices?

We use an innovative survey tool to collect management practice data from over 4,000 medium sized manufacturing firms across Asia, Europe and the US. These measures of managerial practice are strongly associated with fir...Read more...

CEP discussion paper

Anatomy of a Health Scare: Education, Income and the MMR Controversy in the UK

One theory for why there is an education gradient in health outcomes is that more educated individuals more quickly absorb new health-related information. The measles, mumps, and rubella (MMR) controversy provides a case...Read more...

CEE/Education and skills discussion paper

University Quality and Graduate Wages in the UK

We examine the links between various measures of university quality and graduate earnings in the United Kingdom. We explore the implications of using different measures of quality and combining them into an aggregate mea...Read more...

CEP discussion paper

Peer Effects in Science - Evidence from the Dismissal of Scientists in Nazi Germany

This paper analyzes peer effects among university scientists. Specifically, it investigates whether the number of peers and their average quality affects the productivity of researchers in physics, chemistry, and mathema...Read more...

CEE/Education and skills discussion paper

Access, Choice and Participation in Higher Education

Geographical distance between parental home and college poses a potential barrier to higher education entry, and could be a deciding factor when choosing between institutions. Some students may be constrained in their ed...Read more...

CEE/Education and skills discussion paper

Does Money Matter for Schools?

There is considerable disagreement in the academic literature about whether raising school expenditure improves educational outcomes. Yet changing the level of resources is one of the key policy levers open to government...Read more...

CEE/Education and skills discussion paper

What Makes a Test Score? The Respective Contributions of Pupils, Schools and Peers in Achievement in English Primary Education

This study develops an analytical framework for evaluating the respective contributions of pupils, peers, and school quality in affecting educational achievement. We implement this framework using rich data from England ...Read more...

CEE/Education and skills discussion paper

Parents' Basic Skills and Childrens' Cognitive Outcomes

The main aim of this paper is to assess how parents’ literacy and numeracy affect the cognitive skill of their children. The data used are from the British Cohort Survey (BCS) which provides in 2004 basic skill assessmen...Read more...

CEE/Education and skills discussion paper

Education and Mobility

We show that the length of compulsory education has a causal impact on regional labour mobility. The analysis is based on a quasi-exogenous staged Norwegian school reform, and register data on the whole population. Based...Read more...

CEE/Education and skills discussion paper

The Convergence of Compulsory Schooling in Western Europe: 1950-2000

This paper examines the expansion of compulsory schooling in fifteen Western European countries over the period 1950-2000. We show that a convergence process of mandatory years of schooling has occurred across these coun...Read more...

CEE/Education and skills discussion paper

Intergenerational Mobility and Assortative Mating: Effects of an Educational Reform

This paper provides new evidence on the role of the educational system for intergenerational mobility. I evaluate an educational reform, implemented in Sweden in the 1950s and 60s, which postponed tracking and extended c...Read more...

SERC/Urban and Spatial Programme Discussion Paper

Family Types and the Persistence of Regional Disparities in Europe

This paper examines the association between one of the most basic institutional forms, the family, and a series of demographic, educational, social, and economic indicators across regions in Europe. Using Emmanuel Todd’s...Read more...

Journal article

Journal of Public Economics:

The literacy hour

In countries like the UK and the US, a significant and challenging problem facing educators is how to ensure that future generations do not suffer from the severe basic skills problems that currently hinder a sizeable gr...Read more...

CEE/Education and skills discussion paper

Competition for private and state school teachers

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CEE/Education and skills discussion paper

Students' academic self-perception

Participation rates in higher education differ persistently between some groups in society. Using two British datasets we investigate whether this gap is rooted in students’ mis-perception of their own and other’s abilit...Read more...

CEE/Education and skills discussion paper

The effects of higher education funding reforms on the lifetime incomes of graduates

This paper undertakes a quantitative analysis of substantial reforms to the system of higher education (HE) finance first announced in 2004 and then revised again in July 2007. The reforms introduced deferred fees for HE...Read more...

Manpower Human Resource Lab paper

Overqualification, Job Dissatisfaction and Increasing Dispersion in the Returns to Graduate Education

Increasing dispersion in the returns to graduate education is found, using quantile regression. This trend is related to rising overqualification. We distinguish between and validate measures of “Real” and “Formal” overq...Read more...

CEP discussion paper

Incentives in Competitive Search Equilibrium

This paper analyses the interaction between internal agency problems within firms and external search frictions when workers have private information. We show that the allocation of resources is determined by a modified ...Read more...

CEE/Education and skills discussion paper

The Impact of Early Cognitive and Non-Cognitive Skills on Later Outcomes

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CEE/Education and skills discussion paper

Educational Effects of Widening Access to the Academic Track: A Natural Experiment

It is difficult to know whether widening access to schools which provide a more academically oriented general education makes a difference to average educational achievement. We make use of reforms affecting admission to...Read more...

CEE/Education and skills discussion paper

Over-Education and the Skills of UK Graduates

During the early Nineties the proportion of UK graduates doubled over a very short period of time. This paper investigates the effect of the expansion on early labour market attainment, focusing on over-education. We def...Read more...

Journal article

The Economic Journal:

New technology in schools: is there a payoff?

Despite its high relevance to current policy debates, estimating the causal effect of Information and Communication Technology (ICT) investment on educational standards remains fraught with difficulties. We exploit a cha...Read more...

CentrePiece article

In brief: Faith Primary Schools: Better Schools or Better Pupils?

Average levels of pupil achievement in religiously affiliated primary schools seem to be higher than in the secular sector. Research by Stephen Gibbons and Olmo Silva examines whether faith schools really are better or i...Read more...

CEE/Education and skills discussion paper

Higher Education Academic Salaries in the UK

The recent industrial action taken by the Association of University Teachers (AUT) has given the issue of academic pay high prominence in the UK press. There appears to be a remarkable consensus that higher education aca...Read more...

CEE/Education and skills discussion paper

Resources and Standards in Urban Schools

Despite being central to government education policy in many countries, there remains considerable debate about whether resources matter for pupil outcomes. In this paper we look at this question by considering an Englis...Read more...

CEE/Education and skills discussion paper

The Long Term Impacts of Compulsory Schooling: Evidence from a Natural Experiment in School Leaving Dates

This paper investigates a unique feature of the English educational system to estimate the causal effect of compulsory schooling on labour market outcomes. We examine school leaving rules that allow for discrete variatio...Read more...

CEE/Education and skills discussion paper

Faith Primary Schools: Better Schools or Better Pupils?

We provide estimates of the effect of attending a Faith school on educational attainment progress during the Primary education phase in England. We argue that there are no credible instruments for Faith school attendance...Read more...

CEE/Education and skills discussion paper

Sheepskin or Prozac: The Causal Effect of Education on Mental Health

Mental illness is associated with large costs to individuals and society. Education improves various health outcomes but little work has been done on mental illness. To obtain unbiased estimates of the effect of educatio...Read more...

CEP discussion paper

Pay for Performance Where Output is Hard to Measure: the Case of Performance Pay for School Teachers

The introduction of performance-related pay with Performance Management in the state school sector of England and Wales represents a considerable change in the school management system. After 2000, all teachers were subj...Read more...

CEE/Education and skills discussion paper

Using Rate of Return Analyses to Understand Sector Skill Needs

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CEE/Education and skills discussion paper

Close Neighbours Matter: Neighbourhood Effects on Early Performance at School

Children’s outcomes are strongly correlated with those of their neighbours. The extent to which this is causal is the subject of an extensive literature. An identification problem exists because people with similar chara...Read more...

CEE/Education and skills discussion paper

Comprehensive Versus Selective Schooling in England and Wales: What Do We Know?

British secondary schools moved from a system of extensive and early selection and tracking in secondary schools to one with comprehensive schools during the 1960s and 70s. Before the reform, students would take an exam ...Read more...

CEE/Education and skills discussion paper

Education Policy in the UK

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CEE/Education and skills discussion paper

Zero Returns to Compulsory Schooling in Germany: Evidence and Interpretation

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CEE/Education and skills discussion paper

Education Subsidies and School Drop-Out Rates

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CEP discussion paper

Changes in Returns to Education in Latin America: the Role of Demand and Supply of Skills

Changes in the relative wages of workers with different amounts of education have profound implications for developing countries, where initial levels of inequality are often very high. In this paper we use micro data fo...Read more...

CEP discussion paper

Performance Pay for Teachers: Linking Individual and Organisational Level Targets

The introduction of performance-related pay and performance management schemes in the maintained, state, school sector represents a considerable change in the school management system. This paper combines the results of ...Read more...

CEE/Education and skills discussion paper

The Role of Credit Constraints in Educational Choices: Evidence from NCDS and BCS70

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CEE/Education and skills discussion paper

Evaluating the Impact of Education on Earnings in the UK: Models, Methods and Results from the NCDS

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CEE/Education and skills discussion paper

An In-Depth Analysis of the Returns to National Vocational Qualifications Obtained at level 2

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CEE/Education and skills discussion paper

Returns to Education for the 'Marginal Learner': Evidence from the BCS70

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CEE/Education and skills discussion paper

The Widening Socio-Economic Gap in UK Higher Education

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CEE/Education and skills discussion paper

The Literacy Hour

Literacy matters. One in five adults in the UK is not functionally literate and this has serious implications for their well-being and economic circumstances, as well as for national productivity. To ensure that this pro...Read more...

CEP discussion paper

The Impact of Vocational Qualifications on the Labour Market Outcomes of Low-Achieving School-Leavers

This paper creates a pseudo cohort of individuals who left school in the mid-1990s, using Labour Force Survey. The extent of low achievement at school amongst this group is documented, and then the impact of such low ach...Read more...

CEP discussion paper

Why is the Rate of Return to Schooling Higher For Women Than For Men?

The rate of return to schooling appears to be nearly two percentage points greater for females than for males in the National Longitudinal Survey of Youth data set, despite the fact that females tend to earn less, both a...Read more...

CEP discussion paper

Employment After Motherhood: A European Comparison

There is theoretical evidence that economic and family policies have an important impact on mother's employment. The aim of this article is to study empirically the women's transitions from employment to non-employment...Read more...

CEP discussion paper

The Impact of the Labour Market on the Timing of Marriage and Births in Spain.

The main purpose of this paper is to show how the labour market affects Spanish individual fertility decisions. Spain is an interesting case due to its huge fertility decline. Our hypothesis is that precarious Spanish la...Read more...

CEP discussion paper

Does Inequality in Skills Explain Inequality of Earnings Across Advanced Countries?

The distribution of earnings and the distribution of skills vary widely among advanced countries, with the major English-speaking countries, the US, UK, and Canada, having much greater inequality in both earnings and ski...Read more...

CEP discussion paper

Employment Penalty After Motherhood In Spain

This paper investigates whether there exists an employment penalty from motherhood in Spain. In particular, we are interested in transitions from employment to non-employment and downward occupational mobility. Results s...Read more...

CEP discussion paper

Changes in intergenerational mobility in Britain

This paper compares and contrasts estimates of the extent of intergenerational income mobility over time in Britain. Estimates based on two British birth cohorts show that mobility appears to have fallen in a cross-cohor...Read more...

CEP discussion paper

Education and Italian Regional Development

Given recent emphasis on externality to education, macroeconomic studies have a role to play in the analysis of return to schooling. In this paper we study the connection between growth and human capital in a convergence...Read more...

CEP discussion paper

Neighbourhood Effects in Small Neighbourhoods

This paper uses data on a sample of Australian teenagers to test for neighbourhood effects on school dropout rates. The data allows us to test for neighbourhood effects at two different spatial scales. We find that educa...Read more...

CEP discussion paper

The Relative Economic Importance of Academic, Psychological and Behavioural Attributes Developed on Chilhood

This paper makes use of the substantial information about the psychological and behavioural development of children by age ten in the 1970 Cohort to predict later, economic outcomes, namely qualifications, employment and...Read more...

CEP discussion paper

Computers are even more important than you thought: An Analysis of the changing skill-intensity of jobs

We investigate the impact of computer usage at work and other job features on the changing skills required of workers. We compare skills utilisation in Britain at three data points: 1986, 1992 and 1997, using responses t...Read more...