Higher education

This paper reports on the short run impact of one of the U.K. government's flagship education policies, the Excellence in Cities (EiC) program.

his paper uses the measures of basic skills (or functional literacy) in the International Adult Literacy Survey to examine the impact of education and basic skills on earnings across a large number of countries.

The Government's plans for reforming Higher Education (HE) funding have been a source of great controversy. Much of this controversy has been focused on what the reforms will mean for students from different family income backgrounds, and on the levels of debt they may need to incur to go to higher education. Concern has also been raised about how graduates will be affected by these debt repayments throughout their working lives, as well as whether or not the funds raised will improve the situation of universities significantly. This Briefing Note addresses these issues, as well as describing the evolution of the proposed reforms to Higher Education funding in recent months. In doing this, we set out and explain the system which is most likely to be implemented if the HE Bill is passed, and discuss the ways in which students, graduates, and universities are likely to be affected. We also consider the possible effects on the taxpayer.

In this paper I summarize some recent developments in the literature on the econometrics of program evaluation.

Regression, matching, control function and instrumental variables methods for recovering the impact of education on individual earnings are reviewed for single treatment and sequential multiple treatments with and without heterogeneous returns.

This paper uses two sets of cross-country micro datasets to analyse individuals participation in voluntary and community activities and organisations.

We have compiled a non-technical and relatively brief policy summary of an extensive CEE research programme which has focused on the relative value of different academic and vocational qualifications in the British labour market, how this value differs for different subgroups of the population and how this value has changed over time.

In this commentary, IFS compares the reforms proposed by the two parties, looking at the effect on student and graduate finances, the distributional impact on households with different incomes, and the cost to the Exchequer and taxpayers in general.

This article uses factor models to identify and estimate the distributions of counterfactuals.

This paper evaluates the effects of a mjor educational reform in Sweden.

This paper analyses levels of low literacy across 12 countries by using the International Adult Literacy Survey.

This paper examines the family incomecollege enrolment relationship and the evidence on credit constraints in postsecondary schooling.

We offer an extensive summary and a critical discussion of the empirical literature on the impact of human capital on macro- economic performance, with a particular focus on UK policy.

The paper examines the effects of pupil-teacher ratios and type of school on educational attainment and wages using the British National Child Development Survey (NCDS). The NCDS is a panel survey that follows a cohort of individuals born in March 1958 and has a rich set of background variables recorded throughout the individuals' lives.

Market failure can affect the choices that individuals make about education. Christine Frayne, of the Institute for Fiscal Studies, looks at the economic arguments.

This paper investigates the impact of pupil-teacher ratios on later life earnings. We find no impact on the earnings of men, but a lower pupil-teacher ratio does increase the earnings of women – particularly low ability women.