This paper is an evaluation of the British labor market program the New Deal for the Young Unemployed using administrative panel data on individuals between 1982 and 1999. This mandatory program involves extensive job assistance followed by various other options, including wage subsidies. We...

The paper examines the effects of school pupil-teacher ratios and type of school on educational attainment and wages using the British National Child Development survey (NCDS). The NCDS is a panel survey which has followed a cohort of individuals born in March 1958, and has a rich set of...

We study the intergenerational effects of maternal education on children's cognitive achievement, behavioral problems, grade repetition and obesity. We address endogeneity of maternal schooling by instrumenting with variation in schooling costs when the mother grew up. Using matched data from...

This paper examines changes in the distribution of wages using bounds to allow for the impact of non-random selection into work. We show that bounds constructed without any economic or statistical assumptions can be informative. However, since employment rates in the UK are often low they are...

We explore the role that economic incentives, particularly changes in wages at the bottom end of the wage distribution, play in determining crime rates. We use data on the police force areas of England and Wales between 1975 and 1996. We find that falls in the wages of unskilled workers leads to...

We consider the impact of tax credits and income support programs on female education choice, employment, hours and human capital accumulation over the life-cycle. We analyse both the short run incentive effects and the longer run implications of such programs. By allowing for risk aversion and...

This paper provides evidence that daughters make people more left-wing. Having sons, by contrast, makes them more right-wing. Parents, politicians and voters are probably not aware of this phenomenon - nor are social scientists. The paper discusses its economic and evolutionary roots. It also...

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 English education policy initiative Excellence in Cities which has been a flagship...

This paper studies the mental distress caused by bereavement. The largest emotional losses are from the death of a spouse; the second-worst in severity are the losses from the death of a child; the third-worst is the death of a parent. The paper explores how happiness regression equations might be...

We study the intergenerational effects of maternal education on children's cognitive achievement, behavioral problems, grade repetition and obesity. We address endogeneity of maternal schooling by instrumenting with variation in schooling costs when the mother grew up. Using matched data from...