This paper investigates whether teenagers are educationally advantaged if their parents are educators, using data from the Program for International Student Assessment (PISA) for Great Britain and Ireland from 2000. Examining whether teachers’ children do better at tests of reading ability,...

This paper uses a cross-country representative sample of Europeans over the age of 50 to analyse whether individuals’ religiosity is associated with higher levels of well-being as a large number of studies by mental health researchers and economists have suggested. It is shown that in simple...

This paper uses panel data on british manufacturing industries between 1973 and 1985 to examine the relationship between productivity and labour organization. It is shown that the relationship between unions and productivity levels is sensitive to the econometric specification. The evidence...

This study evaluates a comprehensive university access program that provides financial, academic and social support to low socioeconomic students using a natural experiment which exploits the time variation in the expansion of the program across high schools. Overall, we find positive treatment...

University tuition fees for undergraduates were abolished in Ireland in 1996. This paper examines the effect of this reform on the socio-economic gradient to determine whether the reform was successful in achieving its objective of promoting educational equality that is improving the chances of...

This paper presents an empirical analysis of investment in British industry using data at the industry level and focusing on union effects. The authors find that the rate of investment is around 28 percent lower in firms that recognize unions and have an average union density relative to those...

This paper exploits an unusual policy reform that had the effect of reducing the direct cost of schooling in Ireland in the late 1960’s. This gave rise to an increased level of schooling but with effects that vary substantially across family background. This interaction of educational reform...