This paper investigates the robustness of recent findings on the effect of parental background on child health. We are particularly concerned with the extent to which their finding that income effects on child health are the result of spurious correlation rather than some causal mechanism. A...

We discuss fixed and random effects models in the context of educational research and set out the assumptions behind the two approaches. To illustrate the issues, we analyse the determinants of pupil achievement in primary school, using data from the Avon Longitudinal Study of Parents and...

"League table" information on school effectiveness in England generally relies on either a comparison of the average outcomes of pupils by school, e.g. mean exam scores, or on estimates of the average value added by each school. These approaches assume that the information parents and...