This paper considers the issue of unemployment one of the most pressing issues facingthe UK and other governments, as the current recessions deepens. It begins by trying toaccurately date the beginning of the current downturn in the British economy, arguingthat it is clear that the recession...

This thesis addresses the problems associated with security of the electricity supply in the UK. The British electricity supply industry has experienced a significant structural change. Competition has been brought into the electricity industry and a single wholesale electricity market of Great...

Why do people work in the voluntary sector? Is the sector distinct, with characteristics that differentiate it from the private and public sectors? Is it important to consider the existence of the so-called ‘third sector’ when analysing behaviour in the labour market? Is altruism really an...

This paper offers a contract-based theory to explain the determination of standard hours,overtime hours and overtime premium pay. We expand on the wage contract literaturethat emphasises the role of firm-specific human capital and that explores problems ofcontract efficiency in the face of...

This paper makes use of the British New Earnings Survey Panel Dataset between1976 and 2010. Individual‐level pay and hours data are obtained from company payrolls andconsist of a random sample of 1% of the entire British male and female labor force. We findthat the real wages of both male and...

In this paper, we compile a unique historical dataset that records strike activity in theBritish engineering industry from 1920 to 1970. These data have the advantage ofcontaining a fairly homogenous set of companies and workers, covering a long periodwith varying labour market conditions,...

Based on firm‐level payroll data from around 2000 member firms of the BritishEngineering Employers’ Federation we examine the behavior of real hourly earnings over the1927‐1937 cycle that contained the Great Depression. The pay statistics are based on adultmale blue‐collar workers within...

We add to the literature on the long-term economic effects of male military service. We concentrate on post-war British conscription into the armed services from 1949 to 1960. It was called National Service and applied to males aged 18 to 26. Based on a regression discontinuity design we...

We have assembled two British data sets to re-examine the behaviour of real wages over the 1927-1937 cycle that contained the Great Depression. Both provide a degree of micro detail that greatly exceeds previous studies. The first consists of annual wages for 36 manufacturing industries. The...

On their intensive margins, firms in the British engineering industry adjusted to the severe falls in demand during the 1930s Depression by cutting hours of work. This provided an important means of reducing labour input and marginal labour costs, through movements from overtime to short-time...