Results

CVER Research Paper

Gender, achievement, and subject choice in English education

In common with other OECD countries, there is a gender gap in educational achievement in England favouring girls. This carries through to tertiary education. On the other hand, boys are far more likely to engage in STEM ...Read more...

CEP discussion paper

Better together? Heterogeneous effects of tracking on student achievement

I study the effects of early between-school ability tracking on student achievement, exploiting institutional differences between German federal states. In all states, about 40% of students transition to separate academi...Read more...

Journal article

The Economic Journal:

Autonomous Schools and Strategic Pupil Exclusion

This paper studies whether pupil performance gains in autonomous schools in England can be attributed to the strategic exclusion of poorly performing pupils. England has had two phases of academy school introduction, the...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...

CEP discussion paper

Fiscal and education spillovers from charter school expansion

The fiscal and educational consequences of charter expansion for non-charter students are central issues in the debate over charter schools. Do charter schools drain resources and high-achieving peers from non-charter sc...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

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...

CEP discussion paper

Unexpected school reform: academisation of primary schools in England

The 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 contr...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...

CentrePiece article

Academy schools and pupil outcomes

Nearly two thirds of secondary schools in England now have academy status. Andrew Eyles and Stephen Machin are tracking the impact of this unprecedented educational reform on pupil outcomes - in both the first wave of '...Read more...

CEP discussion paper

Academies 2: the new batch

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

CEP discussion paper

The introduction of academy schools to England's education

We study the origins of what has become one of the most radical and encompassing programmes of school reform seen in the recent past amongst advanced countries – the introduction of academy schools to English secondary e...Read more...

CEP discussion paper

Does Management Matter In Schools?

We collect data on operations, targets and human resources management practices in over 1,800 schools educating 15-year-olds in eight countries. Overall, we show that higher management quality is strongly associated with...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...

SERC/Urban and Spatial Programme Discussion Paper

The Impact of Better School Accessibility on Student outcomes

This paper identifies and quantifies the effects of better transport accessibility on student performance measured by mathematics test scores. A 27 km new subway line and the extension of an existing line in Santiago (Ch...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...

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

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...

CEE/Education and skills discussion paper

Students’ Perceptions of Teacher Biases: Experimental Economics in Schools

We put forward a new experimental economics design with monetary incentives to estimate students’ perceptions of grading discrimination. We use this design in a large field experiment which involved 1,200 British student...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...

CEE/Education and skills discussion paper

Are England’s Academies More Inclusive or More ‘Exclusive’? The Impact of Institutional Change on the Pupil Profile of Schools

In 2002 the former Labour government launched the Academies Programme of school improvement. This scheme has targeted entrenched issues of pupil underachievement within state secondary schools located in deprived areas, ...Read more...

CEE/Education and skills discussion paper

Changing School Autonomy: Academy Schools and their Introduction to England's Education

In this paper, we study a high profile case - the introduction of academy schools into the English secondary school sector - that has allowed schools to gain more autonomy and flexible governance by changing their school...Read more...

CEE/Education and skills discussion paper

The Timing of Parental Income and Child Outcomes: The Role of Permanent and Transitory Shocks

How do shocks to parental income drive adolescent human capital, including years of schooling, high school dropout, university attendance, IQ and health? A structural model decomposes household shocks into permanent and ...Read more...

CEE/Education and skills discussion paper

Individual Teacher Incentives, Student Achievement and Grade Inflation

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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

Mobility and School Disruption

We consider the influence that mobile pupils have on the academic achievements of other pupils in English primary schools. We find that immobile pupils in year-groups (à la US “grades”) that experience high pupil entry r...Read more...

CEE/Education and skills discussion paper

Urban Density and Pupil Attainment

We explore the association between urban density and pupil attainment using three cohorts of pupils in schooling in England. Although – as widely recognised – attainment in dense urban places is low on average, this is n...Read more...

CEE/Education and skills discussion paper

Are Schools Drifting Apart? Intake Stratification in English Secondary Schools

The issue of social segregation in schools has seen a recent resurgence of interest – in the US, UK and internationally – as the debate rages on about whether policies that expand families’ freedom to choose amongst scho...Read more...

CEE/Education and skills discussion paper

Peer Effects and Pupil Attainment: Evidence from Secondary School Transition

It is a common belief that children will thrive if educated amongst better class and schoolmates. It is a belief that guides many parents in their choice of school, and has important implications for policy on school cho...Read more...

CEE/Education and skills discussion paper

Gender and Student Achievement in English Schools

The widening gap between the average educational achievement of boys and girls has been the subject of much discussion. This gap is especially controversial for students taking national exams at the end of their compulso...Read more...

CEE/Education and skills discussion paper

New Technology in Schools: Is There a Payoff?

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CEE/Education and skills discussion paper

Competition, Choice and Pupil Achievement

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CEP discussion paper

Disengagement 14-16: Context and Evidence

This paper presents an overview of our current state of knowledge regarding poor motivation of 14-16 year old school pupils in the UK. A number of experts in the field from a variety of disciplines presented papers on th...Read more...