Many workers admit that at times they show up for work even though they feel sick. This behavior, termed "presenteeism," is puzzling since most workers do not incur financial losses when staying home sick. The various reasons behind presenteeism are person-related (e.g. individuals' health or...

This paper addresses the intergeneration transmission of education and investigates the extent to which early school leaving (at age 16) may be due to variations in permanent income, parental education levels, and shocks to income at this age. Least squares estimation reveals conventional...

One of the most consistent findings in studies of electoral behaviour is that individuals with higher education have a greater propensity to vote. The nature of this relationship is much debated, with US studies generally finding evidence of a causal relationship, while European studies...

Is the intergenerational educational link due to nature or nurture? In order to answer this dilemma, this paper identifies the effect of parental education on their offspring’s schooling attainment using a discontinuity in the parental educational attainment. The discontinuity stems from...

This paper provides evidence of heterogeneity in the returns to higher education in the UK. Attending the most prestigious universities leads to a wage premium of up to 6% for males. The rise in participation in higher education also led to a greater sorting of students and an increase in the...

Focussing on recent UK graduates, a wage gap of 12% is found. The unexplained component of the gap is small and a large fraction of the gap can be explained by subject choice, job characteristics, motivation and expectation variables. Motivation and expectations account for 44% of the explained...

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...