This paper evaluates the impact of a performance-related pay scheme for teachers in England. Using data which matches individual pupils to individual teachers, and contains both test scores and value-added, we test whether the introduction of a payment scheme based on pupil attainment increased...

We study the impact of school choice on test score outcome. It has generally proved difficult to isolate exogenous differences in the degree of competition faced by schools. We run a difference-in-difference analysis, exploiting a local government reorganisation to provide identification. This...

There is considerable debate on the merits of extending and strengthening school choice. In England, the controversial Education and Inspections Bill, published on the 28 February 2006, contains a prominent role for ‘school choice’. But the debate lacks some basic information on these...

Using a unique primary dataset for the UK, we estimate the effect of individual teachers on student outcomes, and the variability in teacher quality. This links over 7000 pupils to the individual teachers who taught them, in each of their compulsory subjects in the high-stakes exams at age 16....

In 1988 the UK government introduced greater accountability into the English state school sector. But the information that schools are required to make public on their pupil achievement is only partial. The paper examines whether accountability measures based on a partial summary of student...

In 1988 the UK government introduced greater accountability into the English state school sector. But the information that schools are required to make public on their pupil achievement is only partial. The paper examines whether accountability measures based on a partial summary of student...

We estimate a standard human capital earnings model, augmented to allow for different firm-specific wage premia. The earnings of an individual depend on her human capital bundle and the earnings mark-up of the firm she is currently working for. We use linked employer-employee data from Norway...

Using data from the Workplace Industrial Relations Surveys of 1980, 1984, and 1990, the authors investigate processes of job creation and job destruction in Britain. They find that rates of employment growth, job creation, and job destruction were higher at the end of the 1980s than at the...