By the time children leave primary school there is a large socio-economic gap in their reading proficiency. There are a number of potential explanations for this socio-economic gap and in this paper we investigate the role of three particular genes and gene-environment interactions in...

We show that children who are born at the weekend or just before are less likely to be breastfed, owing to poorer breastfeeding support services at weekends. We use this variation to estimate the effect of breastfeeding on children’s development for a sample of uncomplicated births from...

The Programme for International Student Assessment (PISA) and Trends in Mathematics and Science Study (TIMSS) are two highly respected studies of school pupils’ academic achievement. English policymakers have been disappointed with school children’s performance on these tests,...

The international surveys of pupil achievement – PISA, TIMSS, and PIRLS – have been widely used to compare socioeconomic gradients in children’s cognitive abilities across countries. Socioeconomic status is typically measured drawing on children’s reports of family or...

Children born at the end of the academic year have lower educational attainment, on average, than those born at the start of the academic year. Previous research shows that the difference is most pronounced early in pupils’ school lives, but remains evident and statistically significant...

In this paper we consider whether certain countries are particularly adept (or particularly poor) at getting children from disadvantaged homes to study for a bachelor’s degree. A series of university access models are estimated for four English speaking countries (England, Canada,...

This study sets out to identify the incidence and development of disabled children’s problem behaviours, including conduct, peer, hyperactivity and emotional problems during the early years using the Millennium Cohort Study, a large-scale, nationally representative UK study. We track the...

We analyse the initial impact of a major school admission reform in Brighton and Hove. The new system incorporated a lottery for oversubscribed places and new catchment areas. We examine the post-reform changes in school composition. We locate the major winners and losers in terms of the quality...

What are the impacts on household incomes of the major economic downturn that occurred in almost all OECD countries starting in late 2007? This paper is a condensed version of a public lecture given at the University of Melbourne in honour of R. I. Downing. It draws on a study of 21 rich...

In this paper we evaluate whether the placement of Teach First’s carefully selected, yet inexperienced new teachers into deprived secondary schools in England has altered the educational outcomes of pupils at the age of 16. Our difference-in-difference panel estimation approach matches...