Education, Work and Wages in the UK

Abstract. This paper is concerned with the relationship between education, wages and working behaviour. The work is partly motivated by the sharp distinction in the literature between the returns to education and the effect of wages on labour supply. Education is the investment that cumulates in the form of human capital while labour supply is the utilization rate of that stock. Yet, variation in education is usually the basis for identifying labour supply models – education is assumed to determine wages but not affect labour supply. Moreover, it is commonly assumed that the private rate of return to education can be found from the schooling coefficient in a log-wage equation. Yet, the costs of education are largely independent of its subsequent utilization but the benefits will be higher the greater the utilization rate. Thus the returns will depend on how intensively that capital is utilized and we would expect that those who intend to work least to also invest least in human capital. Indeed, the net (of tax liabilities and welfare entitlements) return to education will be a complex function of labour supply and budget constraint considerations.
Here we attempt to model the relationship between wages, work, education and the tax/welfare system allowing for the endogeneity of education as well for the correlations between the unobservable components of wages and working behaviour. We use the estimates to simulate the effect of a new UK policy designed to increase education for children from low-income households.     

Monetary regimes and the co-ordination of wage setting

A recent literature argues that a strict monetary regime may reduce equilibrium unemployment by disciplining wage setters, as wage setters abstain from raising wages to avoid a monetary contraction. However, in this literature the wage setters are assumed not to co-ordinate their wage setting. The present paper argues that precisely because a strict monetary regime may discipline the unco-ordinated wage setting, thus lowering unemployment in the unco-ordinated outcome, it also reduces wage setters’ incentives to co-ordinate. It is shown that an accommodating monetary regime may reduce equilibrium unemployment, via the strengthening of the wage setters’ incentives to co-ordinate.     

Experiencing change and the evolution of adaptive skills: Implications for economic growth

We distinguish learning in a static environment from that in a dynamic environment to show the existence of an important interaction between the development of new technologies and human capital accumulation. Because technological progress creates a more dynamic environment, it complements education in the production of human capital by enhancing adaptive skills. Higher levels of adaptability and human capital in turn determine the profitability of new inventions and the incentive to invest in new R&D. Differences in the history of technological progress produce different levels of adaptability and our results suggest why countries that have comparable levels of education and per capita incomes may differ significantly in their growth performance.     

Education, segregation and marital sorting: theory and an application to the UK

This paper presents a model of the intergenerational transmission of education and marital sorting. Parents matter both because of their household income and because their human capital determines the distribution of a child's disutility from making an effort to become skilled. We show that an increase in segregation has potentially ambiguous effects on the proportion of individuals that become skilled in the steady state, and hence on marital sorting, the personal and household income distribution, and welfare. We calibrate the steady state of our model to UK statistics. We find that an increase in the correlation of spouses in their years of education will bring about a small increase in the proportion of skilled individuals when the relative supply of skilled individuals is variable at the family level and a decrease when this supply is fixed. Ex-ante utility (of an unborn individual) increases in the first case and decreases in the second. The welfare effect of increased sorting is negative for unskilled individuals and positive for skilled individuals. Increased segregation always leads to an increase in welfare inequality between skilled and unskilled individuals.     

The effects of employment protection: Learning from variable enforcement

Employment protection legislation (EPL) is not enforced uniformly across the board. There are a number of exemptions to the coverage of these provisions: firms below a given threshold scale and workers with temporary contracts are not subject to the most restrictive provisions. This within-country variation in enforcement allows us to make inferences on the impact of EPL which go beyond the usual cross-country approach. In this paper we develop a simple model which explains why these exemptions are in place to start with. Then we empirically assess the effects of EPL on dismissal probabilities and on the equilibrium size distribution of firms. Our results are in line with the predictions of the theoretical model. Workers under permanent contracts in firms with less restrictive EPL are more likely to be dismissed. However, there is no effect of the exemption threshold on the growth of firms.     

Foreign direct investment, competition and industrial development in the host country

This paper analyses the impact of foreign direct investment (FDI) on the development of local firms. We focus on two likely effects of FDI: A competition effect which deters entry of domestic firms and positive market externalities which foster the development of local industry. Using a simple theoretical model to illustrate how these forces work we show that the number of domestic firms follows a u-shaped curve, where the competition effect first dominates but is gradually outweighed by positive externalities. Evidence for Ireland tends to support this result. Specifically, applying semi-parametric regression techniques on plant level panel data for the manufacturing sector we find that while the competition effect may have initially deterred local firms’ entry, this initial effect has been outpaced by positive externalities making the overall impact of FDI largely positive for the domestic industry.     

高校智力资本运作效率的数据包络分析

文章在综合分析高校智力资本的基本概念和主要内容的基础上，提出了用数据包络分析方法评价高校智力资本运作效率的基本思路与方法，并以8所高校在同一学科中的智力资本运作情况为算例，对数据包络分析的算法和所使用的计算工具作了说明。     

C2C交易中消费者购物心理研究

目前我国经常上网购物人数和网民上网购物比例不断增大，消费者对消费者之间的电子商务交易（C2C）也在迅速发展。对于C2C交易中的卖家而言，掌握消费者在C2C交易中的购物心理对提高销售业绩显得特别重要。文章对消费者在C2C交易中的购物心理进行研究。     

B2B电子商务模式的探讨

针对B2B模式将成为未来电子商务发展的主流,文章先从价值链角度分析了B2B电子商务模式对价值链上游的冲击,然后概括性地总结了目前主要的3种B2B电子商务模式,最后用“SWOT”战略评估方法分析了基于供应链管理的区域型B2B电子商务新模式。     

General training by firms, apprentice contracts, and public policy

Workers will not pay for general on-the-job training if contracts are not enforceable. Firms may if there are mobility frictions. Private information about worker productivities, however, prevents workers who quit receiving their marginal products elsewhere. Their new employers then receive external benefits from their training. In this paper, training firms increase profits by offering apprenticeships which commit firms to high wages for those trainees retained on completion. At these high wages, only good workers are retained. This signals their productivity and reduces the external benefits if they subsequently quit. Regulation of apprenticeship length (a historically important feature) enhances efficiency. Appropriate subsidies enhance it further.