This paper focuses on the role of minimum wages, tax and benefit policies in protecting workers against financial poverty, covering 21 European countries with a national minimum wage and three US States (New Jersey, Nebraska and Texas). It is shown that only for single persons and only in a...

Using data on the US and EU top R&D spenders from 2004 until 2012, this paper investigates the sources of the US/EU productivity gap. We find robust evidence that US firms have a higher capacity to translate R&D into productivity gains (especially in the high-tech industries), and this...

This paper examines the relationship between product demand and the pattern of rising skill premia and rising employment of skilled workers in the US and the UK since the 1980s. If more skilled workers demand more skill-intensive goods, then an increase in relative skill supply will also induce...

We discuss the effects of offshoring on the labor market in a matching model with endogenous adjustment of educational skills. We carry out a comparative statics analysis and show that offshoring leads to a restructuring of the economy through skill-biased technical change (SBTC) where overall...

Recent controversy has surrounded the relative value of public and private sector remuneration. We define a comprehensive measure of Total Reward (TR) which includes not just pay, but pensions and other 'benefits in kind', evaluate it as the present value of the sum of all these payments over...

The reduction of early school leaving to less than 10 percent of the relevant population by 2020 is a headline target in the Europe 2020 strategy and one of the five benchmarks of the strategic framework for European cooperation in education and training. Designing adequate policies to combat...

This paper examines empirically the relationship between under-employment and migration amongst five cohorts of graduates of Scottish higher education institutions with micro-data collected by the Higher Education Statistical Agency. The data indicate that there is a strong positive relationship...

International comparisons of inequality based on measures of disposable income may not be valid if the size and incidence of publicly-provided in kind benefits differ across the countries considered. The benefits that are financed by taxation in one country may need to be purchased out of...

Using panel data for twelve European countries over the period 1994-2001 we estimate the extent of state dependence in low pay. Controlling for observable and unobservable heterogeneity as well as the endogeneity of initial conditions we find positive, statistically significant state dependence...

We consider the extent to which societal shifts have been responsible for an increased tendency for females to sort into traditional male roles over time, versus childhood factors. Drawing on three cohort studies, which follow individuals born in the UK in 1958, 1970 and 2000, we compare the...