This paper examines changes in earnings inequality and mobility between 1978/9 and 2005/6 using a unique dataset that includes both those with secure patterns of employment and a wider group who experience periods without earnings. It finds significant increases in annual earnings inequality for...

This paper discusses the extent to which migrants to Britain have been assimilated into the workforce. Migration into Britain has increased over the last 25 years, with a big increase in inflows in recent years. The paper shows that when a migrant worker first arrives they experience a pay gap...

This paper examines the impact of the Working Families Tax Credit (WFTC) on employment retention and advancement. The WFTC, which replaced Family Credit in October 1999, supplemented earnings of low paid workers living in low income families. It was designed to increase the financial incentive...

1. Human happiness is more affected by whether or not one has a job than by what kind of job it is. 2. Thus, when jobs are to hand, we should insist that unemployed people take them. This involves a much more pro-active placement service and clearer conditionality than applies in many countries....

Charles Clarke has recently described England as having "a weak offer for those who want a vocational orientation to their studies." This discussion paper analyzes the weaknesses of vocational education in this country and suggests how to remedy them. <br><br> Vocational education should be about...

Several countries in eastern Europe may accede to the European Union in about two years time, making them candidates to join Europe¿s single currency from 2006. Some well-known economists have advocated that countries in eastern Europe adopt the euro now either unilaterally or by prior...

This paper, originally written as an encyclopaedia survey, considers as globalisation all the consequences of the long-term cheapening of, and expansion of the technical possibilities of -transport and communication; a process more or less uninterrupted since the improvements of navigation in...

"This paper addresses two questions: -Can Welfare-to-Work expand employment and -Has Britain's New Deal for young people actually done so, and have its benefits justified the cost? There is ample evidence that unemployment (and employment) is affected by how the unemployed are treated. Other...