This paper presents a review of non-experimental methods for the evaluation of social programmes. We consider matching and selection methods and analyse each for cross-section, repeated cross-section and longitudinal data. The methods are assessed drawing on evidence from labour market...

This paper provides a non-technical review of the evidence on the returns to education and training for the individual, the firm and the economy at large. It begins by reviewing the empirical work that has attempted to estimate the true causal effect of education and training on individual...

In October 1999, the working families’ tax credit (WFTC) replaced family credit as the main package of in-work support for families with children. Among a range of stated aims, the WFTC is intended to ‘... improve work incentives, encouraging people without work to move into employment’....

This paper uses the Millennium Cohort Study to look at ethnic differences in birth outcomes for a cohort of English children born in 2000 and 2001. There is an increasingly large literature showing that longer gestation and higher birthweight are positively associated with cognitive and...

The question we address in this paper is whether the investment spending of at least some firms is affected by the availability of internally generated finance (retained earnings), reflecting some constraint on the ability of these firms to raise external finance (debt or new equity) for...