This paper provides up-to-date empirical evidence on the socio-economic gap in higher education (HE) participation, for the period spanning the introduction of tuition fees. We assess whether the gap has widened and ask whether the socio-economic gap emerges on entry into university or much...

This paper contributes to the understanding of how compulsory schooling regulations affect educational attainment and subsequent labour market outcomes. It uses valuable information from a natural experiment driven by rules that allow for variation in legal dropout dates. Since the school...

In a meritocratic society an individual's economic success is determined by their ability, not by their parents' socio-economic status. We assess whether meritocracy has increased in both the British education system and labour market. The richness of our longitudinal data enables us to look at...

This paper presents a new model of endogenous wage and capital dispersion where heterogeneity is driven by entrepreneurial incentives to pay higher wages in order to attract and retain workers. The main contribution of this model is to provide a framework with microeconomic foundations that give...

Most countries seek to reduce inequality by encouraging educational attainment, particularly by striving for better outcomes for able individuals from poor backgrounds. We analyse whether this has been a feature of Britain’s substantial expansion of education during the past several decades....

Presents preliminary analysis treating expenditure on research and experimental development as investment in an intangible scientific assetThis article presents preliminary analysis treating expenditure on research and experimental development (R&D) as investment in an intangible scientific...

This paper develops and tests a new model of asymmetric information in the labour market involving employer learning. In the model, I provide theoretical conditions for the identification -- based on the experience and tenure profiles of estimated returns to ability and education -- of employer...

Previous work by the authors suggested that during the 1970s and 1980s, a person’s early cognitive ability became a less important determinant of his or her eventual educational achievement. Furthermore, over the same time period, family background started to have a greater impact on a...