In 1988 the UK government introduced greater accountability into the English state school sector. But the information that schools are required to make public on their pupil achievement is only partial. The paper examines whether accountability measures based on a partial summary of student...

We examine 17 years of a large cross-section to build up a picture of job tenure in Britain. We show that men (women) can expect to hold their present job for about 18 (12) years. These summarize bimodal distributions, with one mode at short tenures, and one at very long tenures. We find some...

We consider the potential importance of labour market efficiency for aggregate growth. The idea is that efficient labour markets move workers more quickly from low to high productivity sites, thereby raising aggregate productivity growth. We define a measure of labour market efficiency as a...

This Paper challenges the consensus on the nature of unemployment dynamics in Britain. We show that the argument that changes in unemployment arise mostly from changes in the duration of unemployment (rather than in the event of becoming unemployed) is flawed. In fact, while shocks to the...

This paper characterizes the processes of job creation and job destruction (JC&D) in Britain, and provides more `stylized facts' to hold up against models of JC&D. The analysis is based on three large cross-sections of continuing plants in Britain. The issues examined include the diversity of...

We provide a critique of the methods that have been used to derive measures of income risk and draw attention to the importance of demographic factors as a source of income risk. We also propose new measures of the contribution to total income risk of demographic and labour market factors....

The rise in inequality and poverty is one of the most important economic and social issues in recent times. But in contrast to the literature on individual earnings inequality, there has been little work modelling (as opposed to documenting) household income dynamics. This is largely because of...

Extending choice in health care is currently popular amongst English, and other, politicians. Those promoting choice make an appeal to a simple economic argument. Competitive pressure helps make private firms more efficient and consumer choice acts as a major driver for efficiency. Giving...

We provide empirical evidence on the nature of spatial externalities in a matching model for Britain. We use a monthly panel of outflows, unemployment and vacancy stocks data from the registers at Job centres in Britain; these are mapped on to travel-to-work areas. We find evidence of...

This Paper examines the relationship between performance of English public sector hospitals (NHS trusts) and the quality of their nursing staff. Performance ratings of NHS trusts published in 2001 and 2002 indicate a clear regional divide. This divide is not explained by lower medical need. The...