Choice and competition in education have recently found growing support from both policymakers and academics. Yet evidence on the actual benefits of market-orientated reforms is at best mixed. Moreover, although the economic rationale for choice and competition is clear, in existing work there...

Theories about neighbours’ influence on children's education that are based on social capital, cohesion, and disorganisation stress the importance of neighbourhood stability. This is because stability is regarded as necessary for building strong ties and friendships, which in turn affect...

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. EiC is aimed specifically at alleviating poor student achievement in inner city areas. The analysis compares educational attainment in Maths and English...

Between 1993 and April 1999 there was no minimum wage in the United Kingdom (except in agriculture). In this paper we study the effects of the introduction of a National Minimum Wage (NMW) in April 1999 on one heavily affected sector, the residential care homes industry. This sector contains a...