This paper uses microdata for 19 African countries to examine the gender difference in maths test scores amongst primary school children. There is a significant difference in maths test scores in favour of boys, similar to that previously observed in developed countries. This difference cannot...

This paper uses the 1980 famine in Karamoja, Uganda, as a natural experiment to evaluate its possible long‐lasting cognitive and health effects. Results indicate a strong negative impact on the educational attainment of adults exposed to the famine in utero or infancy. They were less likely to...

A recent literature highlights the uncertainty concerning whether economic growth has any causal protective effect on health and survival. But equal rates of growth often deliver unequal rates of poverty reduction and absolute deprivation is more clearly relevant. Using state‐level panel data...

We use a sharp, exogenous and repeated change in the value of leisure to identify the impact of student effort on educational achievement. The treatment arises from the partial overlap of the world’s major international football tournaments with the exam period in England. Our data enable a...

School inspections are an important part of the accountability framework for education in England. In this paper we use a panel of schools to evaluate the effect of a school failing its inspection. We collect a decade’s worth of data on how schools are judged across a very large range of...

Much of the economic literature on education treats the actual process of learning as a `black box'. While these `black box' models have many interesting uses, they are of little use when a college seeks advice about reallocating resources from one input to another (e.g. from lecture hours to...

This paper contributes to understanding the ‘London Effect’, focussing on the role of the ethnic composition. The aim is to understand the statistical contribution to the London premium of ethnic composition. I also analyse data on the performance of recent immigrants. The results confirm...

Much of the economic literature on education treats the process of learning as a `black box'. While such models have many interesting uses, they are of little use when a college seeks advice about reallocating resources from one input to another (e.g. from lecture hours to seminars). Commenting...

Estimates of intergenerational economic mobility that use point in time measures of income and earnings suffer from lifecycle and attenuation bias. We consider these issues for the National Child Development Study (NCDS) and British Cohort Study (BCS) for the first time, highlighting how common...