Human capital

The British economy is going to face a number of big issues over the next fifty years. Whether it is reforming the tax and benefit system, managing an ageing population, or preparing for the workplace of the future, there are plenty of challenges and opportunities ahead.

Our research looks at the impacts that Sure Start had on children’s health during their primary school years from its start in 1999 and its peak in the late 2000s.

A presentation by Luke Sibieta, IFS Research Fellow, to the Wales Public Services 2025 conference, ‘Sustaining Wales public services: austerity and beyond’, 12 July 2018.

U.S. postgraduates enjoy greater wage stability over the business cycle than people with only bachelor degrees, finds Ran Gu

lot of factors influence how much an individual earns. Some of these are determined before you are born: how rich your parents are, as well as your gender and ethnicity. Some are decided very early on in life, such as performance at school. But some of these factors are choices, such as what and where to study at university.

Research led by the Institute for Fiscal Studies, released by the Department for Education yesterday has highlighted the importance of university courses in determining graduates’ earnings. But what are the implications for government policy?

Boys are falling way behind in tests and this summer’s World Cup may make it worse.

In April, the Vancouver School is Economics hosted a free public lecture, The Accumulation of Human Capital: Research and Policy Questions, presented by Professor Orazio Attanasio of the University College London.

This presentation was given at the American Economics Association (AEA) and Allied Social Scientice Associations (ASSA) Annual Meeting in Philadelphia.

From May this year, all large employers have had to pay the apprenticeship levy, which equates to 0.5% of payroll bills in excess of £3m. This is estimated to raise £2.8bn a year by 2019-20. In recompense, expenditure on the costs of off-the-job training for apprentices is now effectively free (up to certain limits set by government), which applies to levy- and non-levy-paying employers in a broadly similar way. These changes have led to an increase in the expected government subsidy for apprenticeships in England from £1.8bn in 2016-17 to £2.5bn in 2019-20.

The government’s policy to pay schools to get more pupils studying maths is misguided, argues Luke Sibieta – why not raise sixth-form funding instead?

Last week saw the publication of the latest annual data on earnings. After a brief recovery starting in 2014, once again they are rising more slowly than prices. That’s not because the rate of increase in cash wages has slowed down; it simply hasn’t sped up enough to match the recent acceleration in prices inflation.

This presentation was given at a conference organised by the Office of Manpower Economics on 21 September 2017.

The gender pay gap isn’t our biggest challenge; it’s squeezed incomes