This paper brings together data from the 1998 Workplace Employee Relations Survey, National Survey of Unions and TUC focus on recognition survey to investigate influences on union organising effectiveness. Organising effectiveness is defined as the ability of trade unions to recruit and retain...

Dispersion in pay is lower among union members than among non-unionists. This reflects two factors. First, union members and jobs are more homogeneous than their non-union counterparts. Second, union wage policies within and across firms lower pay dispersion. Unions' minimum wage targets also...

To what extent can the decline in British trade union density between 1990 and 1998 be attributed to declining opportunities to unionize compared to declining propensity to unionize among workers with the opportunity to do so and to compositional change? This question is answered using data to...

Overall, collective bargaining coverage has dropped by around fourteen percentage points. This paper investigates the causes and consequences of the decline in collective bargaining in Britain between 1990 and 1998. One in three workplaces that practiced collective bargaining in 1990 had...

This brief essay provides a selective discussion of how in recent years economists in the neoclassical tradition have addressed the questions whether and how immigration affects native workers' labour market outcomes. In particular, it discusses: the distinction between the displacement,...

We propose a model in which parents have a subjective belief about the impact of their investment on the early skill formation of their children. This subjective belief is determined in part by locus of control (LOC), i.e., the extent to which individuals believe that their actions can influence...

Wind farms reduce house prices in postcodes where the turbines are visible, according to research by Steve Gibbons. Households are willing to pay £1,000 a year to avoid a large wind farm visible within 2km. His study notes that wind turbines are generally popular as a source of green energy but...

Simple reforms to the 'investor route' system whereby wealthy foreigners can get permanent residence in the UK would benefit current residents and signal that the country is open. That's the view of Sir David Metcalf, chair of the government's Migration Advisory Committee and an active CEP...

The rapid influx of international students into UK universities over the past two decades has expanded the number of places available for domestic postgraduates, according to research by Stephen Machin and Richard Murphy. Universities seem to use the extra fees from overseas students to...

For the past few years, CEP research associate Peter Boone and his colleagues at Effective Intervention have been running primary school education projects in the rural villages of Andhra Pradesh and Guinea-Bissau. Their initial survey of literacy and numeracy in Guinea-Bissau showed that very...