US and British unemployment rates for non-white males and females are compared over the period 1970-1998. Whereas US rates remained fairly steady, there was a marked increase in British non-white unemployment rates. The reasons for this poor performance, relative to the good performance of US...

The paper measures the cost of business cycles by asking what proportion of consumption representative households, whose head is currently employed, would be prepared to give up to avoid the risk of unemployment. Previous estimates by Lucas suggested that the costs of macroeconomic fluctuations...

Using a data-set published by the Universities and Colleges Admissions Service, patterns of demand and supply for higher education courses from 1996/97 to 1999/2000 are analysed. Most universities saw a fall in applications and enrolments following the introduction of tuition fees, although this...

People from the UK's minority ethnic communities achieve less good degree results than whites. The paper explores some reasons for this under-performance. By analysing a large sample of around two million observations a measure of the quality of qualifications among those accepted into Higher...