It is clear that education has an important effect on wages paid in the labour market However it not clear whether this is due to the role that education plays in raising the productivity of workers (the human capital explanation) or whether education simply reflects the ability of the worker...

In this paper, we investigate whether or not there is an equal opportunities dimension to regulating equal pay and conditions for temporary work. We develop a ?buffer stock? model of temporary work that suggests a number of reasons why ethnic minorities and women may be more likely to be on...

In Britain about 7% of male employees and 10% of female employees are in temporary jobs. In contrast to much of continental Europe, this proportion has been relatively stable over the 1990s. Using data from the British Household Panel Survey, we find that temporary workers report lower levels of...

This paper estimates the return to education using two alternative instrumental variable estimators: one exploits variation in schooling associated with early smoking behaviour, the other uses the raising of the minimum school leaving age. Each instrument estimates a 'local average treatment...

This article presents a study of the determinants of pay settlements in a sample of Spanish and British establishments. We find that variables such as establishment size and age, foreign ownership, labour costs, the existence of internal labour markets, a strategic approach to human resource...

The large increase in computer use has raised the question whether people have to be taught computer skills before entering the labour market. Using data from the 1997 Skills Survey of the Employed British Workforce, we argue that neither the increase in computer use nor the fact that...

This paper reports estimates of the UK 'college premium' for young graduates across successive cohorts from large cross section datasets for the UK pooled from 1994 to 2006 - a period when the higher education participation rate increased dramatically. This implies that graduate supply...

Ab dem 1.Januar 2015 soll in Deutschland ein flächendeckender Mindestlohn von 8,50 € gelten. Die Warnungen vor Arbeitsplatzverlusten werden meist mit Verweis auf internationale Erfahrungen als ungerechtfertigt zurückgewiesen. Beispielsweise wurde 1999 in Großbritannien der Mindestlohn neu...