If personal computers (PCs) are used to enhance learning and information gathering across a variety of subjects, then a home computer might reasonably be considered an input in an educational production function. Using data on British youths from the British Household Panel Survey between 1991...

This paper analyses participation in postgraduate higher education in the UK at the micro-level makes several contributions to the literature. Firstly, it describes trends in postgraduate participation in the UK. Secondly, it introduces a hitherto unavailable dataset of postgraduate tuition fees...

In this paper we estimate the sorting effects of university degree class on initial labor market outcomes using a regression discontinuity design that exploits institutional rules governing the award of degrees. Consistent with anecdotal evidence, we find sizeable and significant effects for...

During the early Nineties the proportion of UK graduates doubled over a very short period of time. This paper investigates the effect of the expansion on early labour market attainment, focusing on over-education. We define over-education by combining occupation codes and a self-reported measure...

Labor market institutions, via their effect on the wage structure, affect the investment decisions of firms in labor markets with frictions. This observation helps explain rising wage inequality in the US, but a relatively stable wage structure in Europe in the 1980s. These different trends are...

This paper assesses the potential of `workplace training'' with reference to German Apprenticeship. When occupational matching is important, we derive conditions under which firms provide `optimal'' training packages. Since the German system broadly meets these conditions, we evaluate the...

Little is known about the payoffs to apprenticeship training in the German speaking countries for the participants. OLS estimates suggest that the returns are similar to those of other types of schooling. However, there is a lot of heterogeneity in the types of apprenticeships offered, and...

Little is known about the payoffs to apprenticeship training in the German speaking countries for the participants. OLS estimates suggest that the returns are similar to those of other types of schooling. However, there is a lot of heterogeneity in the quality of apprenticeships offered, and...

I investigate the effect of faculty quality on Ph.D. student outcomes. To address the endogeneity of faculty quality I use exogenous variation provided by the expulsion of mathematics professors in Nazi Germany. I find that faculty quality is a very important determinant of short and long run...

We consider the influence that mobile pupils have on the academic achievements of other pupils in English primary schools. We find that immobile pupils in year-groups (à la US “grades”) that experience high pupil entry rates progress less well academically between ages 8 and 11 than pupils...