Critics claim that A level students often lack essential skills required for the world of work. In response, the government is proposing to reform the A level system. In future, students may take up to five subjects in their first year of sixth form, and a 'key skills' course in IT,...

If you pay peanuts, do you get monkeys? If teachers were better paid and higher up the national income distribution, would there be an improvement in pupil performance? Peter Dolton and Oscar Marcenaro-Gutierrez examine the enormous variation in teachers' pay across OECD countries and its...

This paper assesses the impact of the National Minimum Wage (NMW) on employment and inequality in the UK over the decade since its introduction in 1999. Identification is facilitated by using variation in the bite of the NMW across local labour markets and the different sized year on year up...

Governments that are serious about attracting the best people to work in their state education systems must look not only at the salaries they offer but also at the social standing of teachers. That is the conclusion of Peter Dolton, who has conducted the first global comparison of teachers'...

Alexander Danzer and Peter Dolton use the concept of 'total reward' to assess whether public sector pay and pensions are too high relative to the private sector.

Which national education systems deliver the best value for money? Peter Dolton and colleagues rank 30 of the world's richest countries based on their expenditure on teacher costs (which account for 80% of education budgets) and the pupil outcomes they achieve. Finland, South Korea and the Czech...