This paper challenges the view held by the UK Government that the introduction of the English Baccalaureate will lead to an improvement in educational outcomes in secondary education. Evidence is presented to show that this new qualification is biased against disadvantaged pupils from low-income...

The Government and its agencies have seriously overestimated the impact of the specialist schools programme on educational attainment. The substantially higher exam scores achieved on average by schools with specialist status are due primarily to sample selection bias and not to any benefits...

This paper investigates differences between Britain's ethnic groups in their educational attainment at age 16 and their subsequent destinations from school. We use pooled cross-sectional data for the period 1992-98, derived from the Youth Cohort Study, the School Performance Tables and the...

In the field of personnel economics, there are few opportunities to convincingly test for salary returns to specialization as against versatility or multi-tasking. This paper performs such a test by modeling returns to performance measures associated with two different skills practiced by...

A persistent and sizeable literature argues that the reported job dissatisfaction of union members is spurious. It reflects either the sorting of workers across union status or the sorting of union recognition across jobs. We cast doubt on this argument presenting the first estimates that use...

While piece rates are routinely associated with greater productivity and higher wages, they may also generate unanticipated effects. This paper uses cross-country European data to provide among the first broad survey evidence of a strong link between piece rates and workplace injury. Despite...

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