This article uses longitudinal data from the National Child Development Study (NCDS) to investigate the determinants of voter turnout in the 1997 British general election. It introduces measures of cognitive ability and personality into the participation literature and finds that they are...

Health issues are an integral part of the political agenda in Ireland. Yet no study to date has examined the impact of health concerns on political outcomes. This study investigates the relationship between health, both physical and psychological, and perceptions of the health service, and voter...

This paper analyses levels of low literacy across twelve countries using the International Adult Literacy Survey. We go beyond existing work that only looks at the proportions below certain critical levels of literacy. Using methods developed for the measurement of poverty we calculate measures...

It has been nearly 2 years since the UK government reformed the system of local business rates to introduce a uniform business rate (UBR), but the debate continues over the merits of the new system. The change across regions in the revenues raised by the uniform system of business rates...

This paper exploits an unusual policy reform that had the effect of reducing the direct cost of schooling in Ireland in the late 1960’s. This gave rise to an increased level of schooling but with effects that vary substantially across family background. This interaction of educational reform...

Recent media attention has focused on the low ranking of Ireland in a major international study on literacy. In this paper we examine the dataset used in these studies to consider the reason behind the low ranking. We find significant evidence that the underlying reason for this is the low level...

This paper uses the General Household Survey data for the UK to study earnings discrimination between natives and migrants. The key result is that the main source of discrimination is ethnicity rather than migrant status per se. This paper differs from the conventional focus in studies of...

This paper uses pooled cross-section data on recent school leavers in Ireland to model the determinants of labour market status and wages for young adults. Firstly we use a multinomial logit model to analyze whether individuals exit school to employment, unemployment or higher education. Family...

This paper uses the measures of basic skills (or functional literacy) in the International Adult Literacy Survey to examine the impact of education and basic skills on earnings across a large number of countries. We show that the estimated return to formal education is sensitive to the inclusion...