There is a long history of research in the UK and elsewhere showing that children who are born at the end of the academic year tend to have lower educational attainment than children born at the start of the academic year. In England, where the academic year runs from 1 September to 31 August,...

Teach First is a charity that seeks to address educational disadvantage by placing high-quality graduates as teachers in schools with the most educationally disadvantaged pupils. There are two questions to answer when deciding the appropriate way to do this. First, how does one define...

There is substantial evidence of a significant relationship between parents' income and sons' earnings in the UK, and that this relationship has strengthened over time. We extend this by exploring a broader measure of net family income as an outcome. In doing so, we uncover three additional...

A common feature of public sector labor markets is the use of pay scales. This paper examines how the removal of pay scales impacts productivity, by exploiting a reform that compelled all schools in England to replace pay scales with school-designed performance related pay schemes. We find that...

Family and school based inputs determine children's cognitive achievement. We study the interaction between family and school inputs by identifying the causal impact of information about school quality on parental time investment into children. Our study context is England, where credible...

The Social Mobility Foundation (SMF) is a charity that aims to make a practical improvement to social mobility in the UK by encouraging and supporting access to 'high-status' universities and professional occupations for high-attaining pupils from disadvantaged backgrounds. This evaluation...

While there is broad agreement in the UK on the importance of social mobility, current evidence suggests that social background is more strongly related to outcomes in the UK than in many other developed countries. Educational attainment, university choices, occupation and earnings are all...