Administrative data from the UK’s main welfare-to-work programme for unemployed and disadvantaged youth is analysed to identify differences in practice between local delivery areas, and to assess their effects on off-welfare outcomes. The findings reveal important similarities in the nature of...

The review reported here was commissioned in 2000 by the National Audit Office as part of its evaluation of the New Deal for Young People (NDYP). Its purpose was to compare the economic impact of NDYP with those of labour market programmes elsewhere, to the extent that robust and comparable...

The validity of the matching estimator in programme evaluation depends on the completeness of the set of variables used for matching. When an attitudinal variable is relevant for the participation decision, but is either unmeasured or measured only after entry to the programme, estimates of...

This paper addresses the question: what impact do trade unions have on workplace governance, and how has this changed during two decades of union decline? Using nationally representative data on employees in the British Social Attitudes Surveys (BSAS) 1983–1998, we assess associations between...

We investigate the effect of employer behaviour on job satisfaction. Using linked employer-employee data from the 1998 British Workplace Employee Relations Survey, we consider how eorkplace practices affect individual' satisfaction with four aspects of their jobs, including pay. The paper covers...

This paper considers the meaning of union effectiveness and identifies features of union structure and behaviour that are correlated with employee perceptions of union effectiveness in delivering improved work and working conditions. There are strong links between unions’ organisational...

Using British workplace data we examine the relationship between human resource management (HRM) and different forms of employee voice. After controlling for observable establishment characteristics, we find voice and HRM are positively correlated, but this positive association is confined to...

This paper uses the 1990-1998 Workplace Industrial Relations Survey (WIRS) Panel to analyse the impact of worker voice on workplace closure and employment growth among workplaces in Britain.

The paper estimates the union wage premium in Britain’s private sector in 1998, after nearly two decades of union decline. It examines the performance of the linear estimator alongside a semi-parametric technique (propensity score matching (PSM)) – hitherto unused in the wage premium...

Over the last two decades, there has been a major switch in British workplaces away from union voice and representative worker voice more generally, towards direct, non-union forms of voice. This paper assesses the implications of this switch for the effectiveness of worker voice, as measured by...