Results

CEP discussion paper

Female-targeted hiring subsidies, firm learning, and women?s employment

Women often struggle to re-enter employment after career breaks, possibly because employers are uncertain about their productivity. We study whether hiring subsidies help firms overcome this uncertainty and hire from thi...Read more...

CEP discussion paper

Intergenerational income persistence in the Millennial generation

This paper provides new evidence on intergenerational income persistence for a recent UK cohort. Using Next Steps, a longitudinal study of people born in England in 1989-90 linked to administrative education records, we ...Read more...

CEP discussion paper

Brief yet effective: group counseling and college access for disadvantaged students

Large socioeconomic gaps in higher-education access and completion persist even among similarly talented students with access to generous funding, pointing to an important role for information frictions and unequal suppo...Read more...

Blog

LSE British politics:

Burnham's Manchesterism can help universities drive local growth

Andy Burnham recently acknowledged that UK universities are capable of driving innovation and economic growth. But their ability to do so is being undermined by a higher education funding crisis. Manchesterism, with its ...Read more...

CentrePiece article

When Ofsted downgrades schools, headteachers pay the price

A high-risk, low-reward system affects the supply of teachers...Read more...

CentrePiece article

Finding meaning at work

Helping employees assess their jobs through the lens of purpose increases productivity and narrows gender gaps in career choices...Read more...

Blog

LSE Impact:

The lack of women at the top of the academic ladder is driven by unequal childcare responsibilities

Motherhood, and the unequal childcare responsibilities that follow, explain a large share of the observed gender gap in academic employment. Sofie Cairo, Ria Ivandic, Anne Sophie Lassen and Valentina Tartari find that th...Read more...

Journal article

American Economic Review:

Elite universities and the intergenerational transmission of human and social capital

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

CEP discussion paper

Returns to green tasks in Europe: evidence from online job vacancies

There is growing evidence that green jobs have higher skill requirements, but whether they offer sufficient wage incentives to encourage workers to acquire those skills remains unclear. We study the green wage premium an...Read more...

Chapter

Advancing gender equality in parenting: the remaining challenge

in The Routledge International Handbook of Time Use Themes and Applications

The roles of men and women in the labour market have been converging in recent decades, but studies have shown that women are devoting more time to childcare, widening the gender gap in this area. Using data from the UK ...Read more...

CEP discussion paper

Gender equality and innovation: evidence from UK companies

We investigate the effect of intra-firm gender disparities on innovation using a unique longitudinal dataset of UK companies from 1996 to 2019. Utilising within-industry and within-firm variation, as well as an instrumen...Read more...

CEP discussion paper

Measuring systematic gaps in teacher judgement: a new approach

We propose a new approach to test for systematic biases in subjective evaluations. We exploit a setting where teachers were required to assign students both grades and rankings within each grade. Comparing students immed...Read more...

CEP discussion paper

Sentencing severity, victim behaviour, and the prevention of domestic violence

Can harsher criminal sanctions reduce violence inside intimate relationships? We study Brazil?s 2015 Femicide Law, which reclassified femicide as a heinous crime and raised expected penalties for gender-based killings. U...Read more...

CEP discussion paper

An Olympic opportunity

We use a unique natural experiment in which families were randomly selected to live in the Olympic Village, constructed for the 2004 Athens Olympic Games, to assess the impact of improved neighbourhood conditions on acad...Read more...

CEP report

Hive of talent: what would it take to raise skills and productivity in Greater Manchester?

Finding enough highly-skilled workers to enable Greater Manchester to make a serious dent in its productivity gap with London will require action that goes beyond skills policy alone, a new report from the Centre for Eco...Read more...

Blog

CEPR:

An Olympic opportunity for social housing policy: Lessons from the Athens 2004 Olympic Village

Soaring rents, long waiting lists, and mounting political anger are forcing governments across Europe to address gaps in social housing provision. This column examines whether new homes can also transform childrena??s fu...Read more...

Journal article

European Economic Review:

Gender stereotypes, language and performance

This paper examines how gender stereotypes about competence and language in perfor- mance evaluations influences the assessment of man and women employees. Using a unique dataset of reviews annotated by expert linguists,...Read more...

Blog

LSE British Politics:

When Ofsted downgrades schools, headteachers pay the price

Recent reforms to the Ofsted scoring system focussed on the effects of single-word evaluations of schools. Shqiponja Telhaj shifts the focus to school leadership and argues that the detrimental effects of Ofsted downgrad...Read more...

CEP discussion paper

Parenthood and the career ladder: evidence from academia

Persistent gender gaps in the labor market are largely driven by the underrepresentation of women at the top of most professions. We study how parenthood shapes gender gaps in academic careers using population-wide admin...Read more...

Blog

LSE Business Review:

Helping employees find 'meaning' improves performance and narrows gender gaps

A common way to boost employee motivation is to provide monetary incentives linked to a firm's goals. Oriana Bandiera finds that a different approach to motivation, which encourages employees to reassess their roles thro...Read more...

Journal article

Oxford Review of Economic Policy:

A new model of parental time investments: a paradigm shift for addressing gender inequality in the labour market

This paper introduces a new framework for understanding the persistence of the motherhood penalty by emphasizing the role of on-call care. Using a pseudo-panel event study based on the 2003?22 American Time Use Survey (A...Read more...

Journal article

Journal of Policy Modeling:

Social policy gone bad educationally: unintended peer effects from transferred students

What is the impact of an increase of lower-ability students in a university class? We examine a natural experiment in which students from large, low-income families had the chance to transfer to academic programs at a lo...Read more...

CentrePiece article

Degrees of choice

Bolder applications mean that private school pupils end up at better universities than their exam results predict...Read more...

Blog

LSE Impact:

The brutal geography of global elite scientific research

In theory, science aspires to be cosmopolitan. Where you are from and where you undertake your research are secondary to the quality of your ideas. However, as Andres-Rodriguez-Pose, Leiboyu Xiang, and Neil Lee show, the...Read more...

CEP discussion paper

Household taxation, nonlinear occupations, and gender gaps

An enduring source of gender inequality is that some high-paying ("nonlinear") occupations penalize balancing work and household time commitments, as emphasized by Goldin (2014). We ask how household taxation interacts w...Read more...

Journal article

Journal of Human Resources:

Workplace presenteeism, job substitutability, and gender inequality

This paper explores how the parenthood wage penalty is partially explained by an increased within-couple gap in job uniqueness (i.e., the within-establishment substitutability of workers). Uniqueness is rewarded with hig...Read more...

Blog

LSE Europp:

Ten countries, five continents, one pattern - women are less likely to pick STEM subjects

Women make up only 35 per cent of STEM graduates globally. Andres Barrios Fernandez and Aspasia Bizopoulou show that while there is huge variety between countries in the educational attainment of men and women, young wom...Read more...

Blog

LSE Business Review:

How the Great Recession affected millennial education and careers

In 2025 the proportion of young British people aged 16 to 24 who were not in education, employment or training was at its highest since 2014. How much impact do educational choices made at that age have on future careers...Read more...

Journal article

Italian Economic Journal:

Artificial intelligence in education: computer-assisted learning and AI-guided tutors

Artificial Intelligence (AI) and Computer-Assisted Learning (CAL) offer powerful tools to improve foundational skills and close educational gaps, with evidence showing meaningful gains in student performance, especially ...Read more...

Blog

LSE Inequalities:

Bred to rule: What a A#180,000 private tutor job reveals about the education arms race

What does a A#180,000 job ad for a private tutor *for a baby* reveal about the global education arms race? It's tempting to put it down to the eccentric indulgence of a tiny global elite. But it in fact points to an expl...Read more...

CentrePiece article

Supporting new fathers, Spanish style

Use-it-or-lose-it paternity leave combined with full pay is changing norms....Read more...

Chapter

Labour markets and gender inequality

in The London Consensus

Wide disparities persist in the wages and economic power of men and women in nearly all countries. Women still make different educational decisions to men, are under-represented in high-paying jobs, and suffer the majori...Read more...

CEP occasional paper

Structured wellbeing curriculum in schools

Some argue that school is a means to an end, and time spent in lessons may be unpleasant, but it helps these children in the future. The question is 'to what end'. Are school years something which have to be tolerated i...Read more...

Blog

World Bank Blogs:

Learning amid disruption: a feasible, effective, and scalable investment in education during wartime

Wars devastate infrastructure and institutions, but their most profound costs are often borne by human capital. Education systems are among the first casualties of conflict: schools are destroyed, and families are displa...Read more...

Blog

LSE British Politics and Policy:

Elite school students end up in better universities than expected, based on their grades

Students of private and grammar schools are over-represented in elite universities. While some of that is explained by better grades, therse is also a degree of mismatch between how well students do in exams and the qual...Read more...

Journal article

Economics of Education Review:

Home broadband and human capital formation

Using administrative data from England, we estimate the effect of home broadband speed on student-level value-added test scores. Our primary estimation leverages jumps in connection quality between close neighbors across...Read more...

Blog

LSE British Politics and Policy:

What can we learn about youth crime from weekday school closures?

Schools are lauded for their ability to keep young people away from crime and on the right path. But what happens behind the school gates? Janine Boshoff and Matteo Sandi reveal a more complex story - one where schoolyar...Read more...

CEP discussion paper

A new model of parental time investments: a paradigm shift for addressing gender inequality in the labor market

This paper introduces a new framework for understanding the persistence of the motherhood penalty by emphasizing the role of on-call care. Using a pseudo-panel event study based on the 2003-2022 American Time Use Survey ...Read more...

Journal article

Journal of Development Economics:

The firm-pay gender gap and formal sector churn over the life cycle

We find that women sorting into lower paying firms explains nearly half of the gender pay gap in South Africa. Using matched employer-employee panel data covering the universe of formal workers, we show sorting varies co...Read more...

CEP discussion paper

Pipeline vs. choice: the global gender gap in STEM applications

Women account for only 35% of global STEM graduates, a share unchanged for a decade. We use administrative microdata from centralized university admissions in ten systems to deliver the first cross-national decomposition...Read more...

CEP discussion paper

Marriage and misallocation: evidence from 70 years of US history

The traditional expectation that married women should be homemakers restricts them from pursuing their comparative advantage in the labor market. I quantify the aggregate economic consequences of these marriage-specific ...Read more...

CVER Research Paper

Young people, human capital investment and the Great Recession

Policy makers recognise the importance of encouraging young people to stay in education for longer. We use the experience of the Great Recession in England to evaluate whether the incentive to invest in human capital bea...Read more...

CEP discussion paper

Private highs: investigating university overmatch among students from elite schools

Inequality in elite college attendance is a key driver of intergenerational mobility. This paper shifts the focus upstream to examine how elite high school attendance - specifically, enrollment in UK private, fee-paying ...Read more...

Blog

Vox EU Talk (podcast):

Gender and the labour market

How much progress have we made in finding out the source of gender inequality at work? At the PSE-CEPR Policy Forum 2025, Barbara Petrongolo of the University of Oxford and CEPR gave the keynote lecture on 'Questions and...Read more...

Journal article

American Economic Journal: Economic Policy:

The making of civic virtues: a school-based experiment in three countries

This paper shows that schools can foster the transmission of civic virtues by helping students to develop concrete, democratically chosen, collective projects. We draw on a RCT implemented in 200 middle schools in three ...Read more...

Blog

LSE Business Review:

Well designed paternity leave makes Spain a model of success

Spain recently equalised paternity and maternity leave at 16 weeks - but did fathers take advantage of the new policy? The answer is a resounding yes. Libertad Gonzalez, Lidia Farre, Claudia Hupkau and Jenifer Ruiz-Valen...Read more...

CEP report

Pupil absence and the Covid-19 pandemic

A high level of school absence has persisted across many countries since the Covid-19 pandemic. We use English data to investigate how local health and social regulations affected pupil absence rates during the pandemic ...Read more...

Blog

LSE British politics and policy:

Universities are engines of growth and must be backed by policy

The Industrial Strategy identifies growth-driving sectors that will require a highly-skilled workforce. Higher education will be a key to unlocking this ambition. But as universities aim to recruit the best talent from a...Read more...

Blog

LSE Impact:

Banning NDAs in universities is only the first step toward a better research culture

The UK government is moving to ban non-disclosure agreements being used to silence employees who have suffered harassment or discrimination. Such a ban has already come into place in higher education, economists Dina Rab...Read more...

CEP occasional paper

The full returns to higher education in the UK

University education is known to generate significant earnings returns, but its full value may be understated without considering its wider effects on individual wellbeing. This paper estimates the complete lifetime retu...Read more...

Journal article

Journal of Human Resources:

Closing the gap between vocational and general education?

Vocational education delivery is widely debated, with ongoing efforts to improve its effectiveness. In 2010, England introduced University Technical Colleges (UTCs), hybrid institutions combining general and vocational e...Read more...

CentrePiece article

in brief... How gender quotas are challenging political inequality in South Korea

Boosting women?s representation in government means understanding what type of gender discrimination is being practised, say Jay Euijung Lee and Martina Zanella....Read more...

Journal article

Oxford Research Encyclopedia of Economics and Finance:

Returns to adult learning

A common starting point in understanding investments in learning is that people participate in education when the life-cycle returns to education outweigh its costs. Since people will reap the higher wages associated wit...Read more...

External report

A joined-up approach to UK skills policy

It is generally accepted that skills are a key driver of economic productivity and economic dynamism. They are a means by which individuals and communities can become resilient to social and economic change and are a key...Read more...

Blog

The Conversation:

Why are women paid less than men? New research in South Africa shows the company you work for makes the biggest difference

Why do women earn less than men? The usual suspects - occupation, hours, experience - explain some of it. But a powerful, often overlooked reason is simply this: where women work. The companies that hire them play a huge...Read more...

Journal article

LSE Public Policy Review:

Explaining variation in child penalties: the role of gender norms and policies

This paper contributes to understanding global variation in child and marriage penalties by focusing on the role of patriarchal control, gender norms, and public policies. We introduce a new measure of gender norms, the ...Read more...

Government consultation

Education committee - Further education and skills

The further education sector is currently navigating a series of reforms and challenges. In this inquiry the Education Committee will explore these issues and other pressures currently facing the further education sector...Read more...

Blog

LSE Business Review:

Gender gaps are reduced in family-friendly workplaces

The arrival of children is one of the primary reasons for gender inequalities in the labour market. Anna Raute shares her findings on how firms can help alleviate gender gaps through family-friendly policies....Read more...

Journal article

Science Advances :

Two paradoxes in women?s well-being

We review the literature on the gender gap in well-being, identifying two key paradoxes. First, although women today report higher levels of life satisfaction and overall happiness than men, they experience worse outcome...Read more...

Journal article

Journal of Human Resources :

Where versus what: college value-added and returns to field of study in further education

We use administrative records on educational and labor market trajectories to estimate the value-added of English further education colleges in terms of educational and labor market outcomes and earnings returns to diffe...Read more...

CentrePiece article

Property rights empower women inventors

Breakthrough innovations occurred when women obtained the right to reap economic rewards from their inventions. Ruveyda Nur Gozen shows how such inclusive policies are a critical driver of economic growth....Read more...

Blog

The We Society:

Improving social mobility through education and language with Lee Elliot Major (podcast)

Professor Lee Elliot Major joins Will Hutton to discuss the decline of social mobility in the UK and advocates for a broader understanding of systemic barriers, including arguing for a new approach towards language to im...Read more...

Blog

LSE Business Review:

The confidence gap influencing who applies to top colleges and careers

Students' choice of which university and programme to apply to isn't a simple financial decision. There's more at stake in the decision than finance and information gaps. Behavioural constraints play an important role. C...Read more...

Blog

Nada es Gratis:

The Economics of Education text: Gender Gaps in Education

International data stubbornly show that boys underperform and that girls are still underrepresented in university and career careers related to STEM (Science, Technology, Engineering and Mathematics) disciplines....Read more...

Journal article

European Economic Review:

Does the child penalty strike twice?

This paper compares the labor market trajectories of grandparents before and after the arrival of their first grandchild. We find gender gaps in earnings of 4 and 10 percent five and ten years, respectively, after the fi...Read more...

Blog

Vox EU:

The evolution of gender in the labour market

Despite significant progress in closing the gender gap in earnings, work remains highly gendered, with women continuing to participate less in the workforce, work fewer hours, and face persistent wage disparities. This c...Read more...

CEP discussion paper

The evolution of gender in the labor market

This paper traces the evolution of the study of gender in the labor market, focusing on how academic thinking on this topic has evolved alongside real world developments in gender inequality from the 1980s to the present...Read more...

Journal article

Economics of Education: An Introductory Textbook:

Gender gaps in education

International data stubbornly show that boys perform worse than girls in school and that women continue to be under-represented in university and professional careers related to STEM disciplines (Science, Technology, Eng...Read more...

Journal article

Journal of Political Economy:

College attrition and the dynamics of information revelation

We examine how informational frictions impact schooling and work outcomes by estimating a dynamic structural model where individuals face uncertainty about their academic ability and productivity, which determine their s...Read more...

Journal article

Industrial Relations:

Diversity and social capital within the workplace: evidence from Britain

This article uses the British Workplace Employee Relations Survey to investigate the links between gender or ethnic diversity and workers' level of trust in managers or the extent of identity with the values and objectiv...Read more...

Chapter

Crime and the labor market

in Handbook of Labor Economics

The economics of crime has emerged as a critical field over the past 30 years, with economists increasingly exploring the causes and consequences of criminal behavior. This chapter surveys key contributions and developme...Read more...

Blog

LSE Inequalities:

How gender quotas are challenging political inequality in South Korea

How do you boost women's representation in government, ask Jay Euijung Lee and Martina Zanella? Simple gender quotas risk being gamed, for instance by parties fielding women in unwinnable constituencies. The key, they su...Read more...

CEP discussion paper

Assessing the costs of balancing college and work activities: the gig economy meets online education

Balancing the demands of work and schooling is a challenging task for an increasing number of students who have to pay their way through college and for workers who intend to upgrade their skills. However, flexible learn...Read more...

CVER Research Paper

The mismatch earnings penalty

We disentangle the relationship between student ability, course quality and the match between the two on earnings, estimating the first mismatch parameter in the literature. Using administrative data on all state-educate...Read more...

Journal article

American Economic Journal: Economic Policy:

Education and geographical mobility: the role of the job surplus

Better educated workers accept many more long-distance job offers, and relocate quicker following local shocks. I attribute this to a fundamental feature of their labor market experience, unrelated to geography: large re...Read more...

CEP discussion paper

Crime and education

Research studying connections between crime and education is a prominent aspect of the big increase of publication and research interest in the economics of crime field. This work demonstrates a crime reducing impact of ...Read more...

Blog

Economics Observatory:

UK higher education finance: what's the problem and what can be done?

The tripling of tuition fees in 2012 put universities in a strong financial position. But since then, fees - and the maintenance loans that support students - haven't kept up with inflation. Now, students face real hards...Read more...

CEP discussion paper

Crime and the labor market

The economics of crime has emerged as a critical field over the past 30 years, with economists increasingly exploring the causes and consequences of criminal behavior. This chapter surveys key contributions and developme...Read more...

CentrePiece article

Parenthood and academia

Women are underrepresented in senior academic positions in economics. Ria Ivandic and Anne Sophie Lassen assess the impact of having children on men and women's career trajectories....Read more...

CentrePiece article

How to build a citizen

Schools are where the next generation learns not only how to understand the world but also how to change it. Research by Simon Briole, Marc Gurgand, Eric Maurin, Sandra McNally, Jenifer Ruiz-Valenzuela and Daniel Santin ...Read more...

Blog

LSE Business Review:

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

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

CEP occasional paper

Mental health support teams in schools: Evidence and assumptions

In this paper we examine the cost-effectiveness of providing NICE recommended psychological therapy to young people. For each type of mental health problem we show: (i) the assumptions used to derive the impact of treati...Read more...

CEP discussion paper

Learning about women's competence: the dynamic response of political parties to gender quotas in South Korea

We study the dynamic responses of political parties to gender quotas in South Korean municipal councils, a setting with nearly zero women pre-quota. We exploit two unique institutional features: the quota intensity is di...Read more...

Blog

LSE Business Review:

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

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

Journal article

Oxford Open Economics:

Education inequalities

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

Blog

LSE Business Review:

The UK must invest in further and higher education

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

Blog

Vox EU:

Gendered change: 150 years of transformation in US hours

The 2023 Nobel Committee awarded the Sveriges Riksbank Prize in Economic Sciences in Memory of Alfred Nobel to Claudia Goldin. Among her many contributions is the emphasis on the non-monotonic trend in women's employment...Read more...

Journal article

Journal of Labor Economics:

Taxes, childcare and gender identity norms

We investigate the role of gender norms in shaping parental childcare following changes in the relative take-home pay of mothers and fathers. Exploiting variation from Swedish tax reforms, we estimate the elasticity of s...Read more...

CEP election analysis

Further and higher education

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

Journal article

The Economic Journal:

Personnel management and school productivity: evidence from India

This paper uses new data to study school management and productivity in India. We report five main results. First, management quality in public schools is low, and -2 standard deviations below high-income countries with ...Read more...

Journal article

Economica:

Do management practices matter in further education?

Further education and sixth form colleges are key institutions for facilitating skill acquisition among 16-19 year olds in the UK. They enrol half a school cohort after completion of their lower secondary education, and ...Read more...

CentrePiece article

in brief... Why representation in economics matters

To inspire the next generation of black economists, how important is it for them to see people like themselves working in the profession? Felicia Odamtten, an economist at the Resolution Foundation and founder of The Bla...Read more...

CentrePiece article

A generation scarred by the Covid-19 pandemic

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

CEP discussion paper

Education, gender and family formation

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

CEP discussion paper

Gender, careers and peers' gender mix

We use Italian Social Security data to study how the gender composition of a worker's professional network influences their career development. By exploiting variation within firms, occupations, and labor market entry co...Read more...

CEP discussion paper

Property rights and innovation dynamism: the role of women inventors

How do stronger property rights for disadvantaged groups affect innovation? I investigate the impact of strengthened property rights for women on U.S. innovation by analyzing the Married Women's Property Acts, which gran...Read more...

CEP discussion paper

Gendered change: 150 years of transformation in US hours

Women's contribution to the economy has been markedly underestimated in predominantly agricultural societies, due to their widespread involvement in unpaid agricultural work. Combining data from the US Census and several...Read more...

Blog

Economics Observatory:

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

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

Blog

Economics Observatory:

How can the UK's apprenticeship system be improved?

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

Journal article

Economics of Education Review:

Teacher value-added and gender gaps in educational outcomes

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