This paper offers a contract-based theory to explain the determination of standard hours, overtime hours and overtime premium pay. We expand on the wage contract literature that emphasises the role of firm-specific human capital and that explores problems of contract efficiency in the face of...

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 investigate wage-hours contracts within a four-period rent sharing model that incorporates asymmetric information. Distinctions are made among (a) an investment period, (b) a period in which the parties may separate (quits or layoffs) or continue rent accumulation and sharing, (c) a post...

Significant numbers of employees work more hours in the workplace than their contract stipulates. Such overtime work can either be paid or unpaid. This research considers overtime working in Germany and the UK and shows that the quantitative significance of both paid and unpaid overtime is...

On their intensive margins, firms in the British engineering industry adjusted to the severe falls in demand during the 1930s Depression by cutting hours of work. This provided an important means of reducing labour input and marginal labour costs, through movements from overtime to short-time...

This paper investigates the relationship between personality traits in adolescence and performance in high school using a large and recent cohort study. In particular, we investigate the impact of locus of control, self-esteem and work ethics at age 15, on test scores at age 16, and on subject...

We provide empirical support for the contention that within-job wage growth relates purely to job-specific performance and that returns to general experience are assessed at the point of job change. Using the British New Earnings Survey panel data we identify job changes that take place both...

This paper is concerned with the relationship between class size and the student outcome length of time in post-compulsory schooling. Research on this topic has been problematic partly because omitted unobservables, like parents' incomes and education levels, are likely to be correlated with...