This study uses the Progress in International Reading Literacy Study (PIRLS) data, the only cross-national data having measured educational achievement during the COVID-19 pandemic, to investigate educational achievement decline of fourth graders across 21 European countries between 2016 and...

Building on existing studies of national employment systems, we take a multi-dimensional approach to comparative employment relations where the national level remains meaningful but which emphasises within-country dynamics and heterogeneity. Analysing nationally representative workplace surveys...

Does employers' association (EA) membership affect wages? Such effects, positive or negative, could follow from increased productivity, employer collusion, or other channels. We analyse this question drawing on matched employer-employee panel data, including time-varying EA affiliation and...

Newborn health is an important component in the chain of intergenerational transmission of disadvantage. This paper contributes to the literature on the determinants of health at birth in two ways. First, we analyze the role of maternal endowments and investments (education and smoking in...

We shed light on an understudied group: retirees in unions. Using representative individual-level data of 19 European countries, we find that the share of retirees in unions and the union density of retirees increased between 2008 and 2020. Econometric analyses indicate that on average retired...

We exploit the 2016 Brexit referendum as a migration shock to evaluate the impact of reduced labour supply on the provision of hospital care. After the referendum, a sharp drop in the number of early-career new joiners from Europe resulted in a considerable decrease in the share of EU nurses in...

Much research shows that students take account of their perceived comparative advantage in mathematics relative to verbal skills when choosing college majors and career tracks. There is also evidence for an important role for comparative advantage in explaining the gender gap in college STEM...

By voting to leave the European Union (EU) in 2016, the United Kingdom (UK) set off a long period of uncertainty and signalled its support for the Leave campaigns, which centred around restricting migration. This paper researches how this decision affected EU-UK migration patterns. We exploit...

We investigate the impact of immigration on productivity in the UK, using newly published ONS data on employees of non-UK origin by region and sector. Consistent with earlier research, we find some evidence of a positive association between non-EU migration and productivity, and some weaker...

Alcohol exclusion provisions, embedded in the Uniform Accident and Sickness Policy Provision Law (UPPL), allow health insurance providers to punish alcohol consumption by permitting them to deny claims for injuries stemming from alcohol impairment or the use of non-prescribed narcotics. Although...