The authors hypothesize that the effectiveness of external threats in raising workers' effort is mediated by, among other labor market conditions, the presence or absence of a powerful union. In particular, they argue that because powerful unions reduce the potency of the external threat of job...

The authors hypothesize that the effectiveness of external threats in raising workers' effort is mediated by, among other labor market conditions, the presence or absence of a powerful union. In particular, they argue that because powerful unions reduce the potency of the external threat of job...

This paper presents evidence that, across many European countries, the 1990s have witnessed an intensification of labour effort, and investigates explanations for this process. Using data drawn from The European Survey on Working Conditions, we construct an index of work effort and show that it...

Two theories of over-qualification are considered, namely mismatch, whereby workers do not find the most appropriate jobs for their skills, because of imperfect information or labour market rigidities, and 'heterogeneous workers', whereby individuals with the same qualifications have different...

This paper assesses how far the products of education are utilized in the British labour market, and how utilization has recently changed. We distinguish the concepts of "under-education", "over-education" and "qualification inflation". Using data from four surveys we find that over-education,...

This study seeks to explain changes in the post-compulsory education participation rates of 16- and 18-year-old people in England and Wales, Germany, the Netherlands and Sweden. The results suggest that the key explanatory variable is the increase in prior academic attainment before the end of...

The stylized facts associated with workers satisfaction are tested using a distinctive data set. Using principal components analysis five distinct measures of workers satisfaction, and the factors that determine each one are examined. The data set, covering three low-wage service sectors,...

In this paper, we explore whether an intergenerational relationship exists between the reading and mathematics test scores, taken at ages 7, 11 and 16, of a cohort of individuals born in 1958 and the equivalent test scores of their offspring measured in 1991. Our results suggest that how the...

This paper uses data sources from England with the unique capacity to measure distances between home addresses and education institutions, to investigate, for the first time, the effect that such distance has on an individual’s post-compulsory education participation decision. The results...