Mental illness (especially depression and chronic anxiety) is the biggest single cause of misery in advanced countries. But only one quarter of those who are ill receive treatment. Mental health is crucial for wellbeing and there are modern evidence-based ways of treating mental health problems...

This paper investigates the impact of schools banning mobile phones on student test scores. By surveying schools in four English cities regarding their mobile phone policies and combining it with administrative data, we find that student performance in high stakes exams significantly increases...

With the NHS a central issue of the 2015 general election, the parties are debating funding, the form of provision, quality and productivity. This paper looks at the NHS record under the coalition government and considers the plans each major party have put forward regarding the future of the...

Is it in politicians' interest to focus policy on subjective well-being (SWB)? Many governments and international organisations have recently begun to measure progress at least partly in terms of the population's SWB or "happiness". This paper investigates the extent to which citizens themselves...

The paper examines recent evidence on the erosion of the German industrial relations model. Although its coverage has declined, much of this has occurred in smaller and newer establishments, and compared with Britain, it has remained solid in the areas of Germany's traditional industrial...

The main political parties disagree about the appropriate rate of income Tax on the highest incomes. This note lays out the economic principles surrounding the top rate of income tax and considers the evidence that high earners respond to higher tax rates by working less or by taking steps to...

Tournaments are designed to enhance participants' effort and productivity. However, ranking near the top may increase psychological pressure and reduce performance. We empirically study the impact of interim rank on performance using data from international diving tournaments. We find that...

Using data from the British Household Panel Survey (BHPS) we show performance pay (PP) increased earnings dispersion among men and women, and to a lesser extent among full-time working women, in the decade of economic growth which ended with the recession of 2008. PP was also associated with...

The coalition government's austerity programme has resulted in some sizeable reductions in the police workforce, yet crime has continued to fall. A key question for the next Parliament is whether further real-terms reductions in police budgets can occur without more deleterious effects on crime....

Housing affordability is a key concern of an ever-larger fraction of UK voters who are crammed into artificially limited space. At the same time, a lot of wealth lies in housing assets and there are many vested interests in keeping things this way, such as current homeowners and private...