This paper reports estimates of the UK “college premium” for young graduates across successive cohorts from large cross section datasets for the UK pooled from 1994 to 2006 - a period when the higher education participation rate increased dramatically. This implies that graduate supply...

This paper estimates the return to education using two alternative instrumental variable estimators: one exploits variation in schooling associated with early smoking behaviour, the other uses the raising of the minimum school leaving age. Each instrument estimates a 'local average treatment...

This paper provides findings from the UK Labour Force Surveys from 1996 to 2003 on the financial private returns to a degree the "college premium". The data covers a decade when the university participation rate doubled yet we find no significant evidence that the mean return to a degree dropped...

This paper investigates the impact of changes in the funding of higher education in England on students' choices and outcomes. Over the last two decades – through three major reforms in 1998, 2006 and 2012 – undergraduate university education in public universities moved from being free to...

This paper investigates the impact of changes in the funding of higher education in England on students' choices and outcomes. Over the last two decades - through three major reforms in 1998, 2006 and 2012 - undergraduate university education in public universities moved from being free to...

The economics profession has made considerable progress in understanding the increase in wage inequality in the U.S. and the UK over the past several decades, but currently lacks a consensus on why inequality did not increase, or increased much less, in (continental) Europe over the same time...

This paper estimates the return to education using two alternative instrumental variable estimators: one exploits variation in schooling associated with early smoking behaviour, the other uses the raising of the minimum school leaving age. Each instrument estimates a 'local average treatment...

This paper provides findings from the UK Labour Force Surveys from 1996 to 2003 on the financial private returns to a degree - the "college premium." The data covers a decade when the university participation rate doubled - yet we find no significant evidence that the mean return to a degree...

The large increase in computer use has raised the question whether people have to be taught computer skills before entering the labour market. Using data from the 1997 Skills Survey of the Employed British Workforce, we argue that neither the increase in computer use nor the fact that...

We use a novel identification strategy to investigate whether regional universities make their local economies more resilient to adverse economic shocks. Our strategy is based on state governments assigning normal schools (to train teachers) and insane asylums to counties between 1830 and 1930....