Existing research shows that house prices respond to local school quality as measured by average test scores. However, higher test scores could signal better quality teaching and academic value-added, or higher ability, sought-after intakes. In our research, we show decisively that value-added...

In this paper, we survey the UK-based literature on school structures and school autonomy to identify settings in which alternative and more autonomous school arrangements can improve the educational attainments of pupils in the bottom tail of the achievement distribution. We also present new...

In recent years the role of investment in Information and Communication Technology (ICT) as an effective tool to raise educational standards has attracted growing attention from both policy makers and academic researchers. While the former tend to express enthusiastic claims about the use of new...

Existing research shows that house prices respond to local school quality as measured by average test scores. However, higher test scores could signal better quality teaching and academic value-added, or higher ability, sought-after intakes. In our research, we show decisively that value-added...

Economists have typically been sceptical that computers improve educational outcomes. But research by Stephen Machin, Sandra McNally and Olmo Silva finds evidence that new technology can have a positive effect on pupils' performance.

A central focus of current education policy is to expand parents' choice over where their children go to school and to promote competition between schools. A long-running CEP research programme by Stephen Gibbons, Stephen Machin and Olmo Silva has been assessing the effects on both educational...

Existing research shows that house prices respond to local school quality as measured by average test scores. However, higher test scores could signal higher academic value-added or higher ability, more sought-after intakes. In our research, we show that both school value-added and student prior...

Choice and competition in education have found growing support from both policy makers and academics in the recent past. Yet, evidence on the actual benefits of market-oriented reforms is at best mixed. Moreover, while the economic rationale for choice and competition is clear, in existing work...

Despite its high relevance to current policy debates, estimating the causal effect of Information Communication Technology (ICT) investment on educational standards remains fraught with difficulties. In this paper, we exploit a change in the rules governing ICT funding across different school...

Choice and competition in education have found growing support from both policy makers and academics in the recent past. Yet, evidence on the actual benefits of market-oriented reforms is at best mixed. Moreover, while the economic rationale for choice and competition is clear, in existing work...