Countries often spend billions on university research. There is growing interest in how to assess whether that money is well spent. Is there an objective way to assess the quality of a nation's world-leading science? I attempt to suggest a method, and illustrate it with modern data on economics....

This paper examines the persistence of under-employment amongst UK higher education graduates. For the cohort of individuals who graduated in 2002/3, micro-data collected by the Higher Education Statistical Agency, are used to calculate the rates of "non-graduate job" employment 6 months and 42...

This paper analyses the relationship between social networks and the job search behaviour of individuals. Networking is not only based on friends and relatives but also on neighbourhood. The geographic closeness is associated to social interactions. Individuals who are in physical and social...

Skill shortages are often portrayed as a major problem for the economies of many countries including the Australian economy. Yet, there is surprisingly little evidence about their prevalence, causes and consequences. This paper attempts to improve our understanding about these issues by using...

We measure the extent to which skilled immigrants increase innovation in the United States by exploring individual patenting behavior as well as state-level determinants of patenting. The 2003 National Survey of College Graduates shows that immigrants patent at double the native rate, and that...

This study considers the relationship between job search and over-education amongst recent Australian bachelor degree graduates. Using a panel estimation method, we find that using universities' career offices is associated with a reduced probability of over-education (between 3% and 8%)...

Higher education contributes to economic innovation. This study measures and compares the extent to which national governments’ policies foster this contribution across Europe. The study stresses the relevance of policies which are ‘empowering’ for higher education institutions, or in...

In many countries there is a considerable gender gap in enrolment for a bachelor's degree in Economics, arguably an important stepping stone towards positions of influence in policy making and occupations paying relatively high wages. We investigate the sources of this gap by looking in detail...