Publications
Publication date: 29 May 2020
| Publication type: Report
| Theme: Education & Labour, Employment & Social policy
The Early Years Toolbox (EYT) is a set of iPad-based assessment tools suitable for use with young children by early years staff. It includes eight brief, engaging, and game-like assessment apps that aim to capture abilities that research has shown to be the most predictive of later academic, social...
Publication date: 2 Mar 2020
| Publication type: Report
| Report to: Office of Manpower Economics
This report addresses the important question of how wage growth in the United Kingdom is determined in the long run and whether wage decisions in the public sector can have spillover effects into the private sector. To analyse these questions, we construct a unique new dataset that is made up of...
Publication date: 26 Feb 2020
| Publication type: Report
| Theme: Employment & Social policy
| Project: Evaluation of URLEY (Using Research Tools to Improve Language in the Early Years)
| Report to: Education Endowment Foundation
The URLEY (Using Research Tools to Improve Language in the Early Years) programme trains early years teachers to improve children’s language and social-behavioural outcomes in Nursery and Reception Year (ages 3 to 5). Teachers take part in 5 day-long professional development workshops in which they...
Publication date: 4 Nov 2019
| Publication type: Report
| Theme: Employment & Social policy
| Report to: Low Pay Commission
Right from their inception the minimum wage rates have included age-related bands intended to give young people protection in the labour market. Initially there were only two age bands, 18-21 and 22+. With the introduction of the National Living Wage in 2016 there are now four age bands and an...
Publication date: 9 Oct 2019
| Publication type: Report
| Theme: Education & Labour
| JEL Classification: J32, H55, J45
| Report to: Office of Manpower Economics
Over the last 10 years the relative value of public and private sector remuneration packages, including pensions, has changed markedly. This report reviews a comprehensive measure of Total Reward (TR) which includes not just pay, but pensions and other ‘benefits in kind’, evaluates it as the...
Publication date: 26 Jul 2019
| Publication type: Report
| Theme: Education & Labour
The Youth Jobs Gap research series uses previously unseen Longitudinal Education Outcomes data to present new insights into disadvantaged young people’s transition from compulsory education into employment. The first three national reports looked at NEET rates, higher education, and apprenticeships...
Publication date: 11 Jul 2019
| Publication type: Report
| Theme: Education & Labour, Employment & Social policy
| Report to: Education Endowment Foundation
The Changing Mindsets project aimed to improve attainment outcomes at the end of primary school by teaching Year 6 pupils that their brain potential was not a fixed entity but could grow and change through effort exerted. The programme, delivered by Portsmouth University, taught pupils about the...
Publication date: 11 Jul 2019
| Publication type: Report
| Theme: Education & Labour
| Report to: Education Endowment Foundation
The pilot intervention ‘Embedding contextualisation in English and mathematics GCSE teaching’ trains English and maths teachers to use examples from real life and vocational contexts in their teaching to emphasise the relevance of studies to the future careers of students. The aim is to improve...
Publication date: 8 Jul 2019
| Publication type: Report
| Theme: Trade, Investment & Productivity
| Publisher: European Commission
| Report to: European Commission, Directorate-General for Internal Market, Industry, Entrepreneurship and SMEs
The Spanish economy has been growing at over 3% since 2015, above the average for the EU and the euro area. Unemployment, although still 10 percentage points above the EU average, has fallen from a high of 26.1% in 2013 to 17.2% in 2017. Interest rates are at historical lows thanks to the expansive...
Publication date: 21 Jun 2019
| Publication type: Report
| Theme: Education & Labour
This report is part of the Youth Jobs Gap research series, which uses new Longitudinal Education Outcomes data to present new insights into disadvantaged young people’s transition from compulsory education into employment. The first three national reports have looked at NEET rates, higher education...
Publication date: 19 Jun 2019
| Publication type: Report
| Theme: Education & Labour
| Report to: DfE
Traineeships are an education and training programme that provide young people aged 16-24 with an intensive period of work experience and work preparation training, as well as offering them support in improving their English and maths, to give them the best opportunity of entering an apprenticeship...
Publication date: 11 Jun 2019
| Publication type: Report
| Theme: Employment & Social policy
There is plenty of evidence to indicate that teacher quality matters for pupil attainment. But teachers do not work in a vacuum. They are employed to work in schools, usually under the direction of supervisors and a Head Teacher who, together with a governing board and officials in local and...
Publication date: 31 May 2019
| Publication type: Report
| Theme: Employment & Social policy
| Report to: Department for Education
Religious and ethnic segregation in schools is an issue of concern for educationalists and policy makers because it has implications for equality and for inclusion and social cohesion. This report was commissioned by the Department for Education to provide evidence on how segregation might be...
Publication date: 13 May 2019
| Publication type: Report
| Theme: Employment & Social policy
| Project: Improving Working Memory
| Report to: Education Endowment Foundation
This Education Endowment Foundation project was a randomised controlled trial (RCT) with 127 schools participating. It tested two interventions: the Improving Working Memory intervention (WM) and an adapted version, named the Working Memory Plus intervention (WM+). Both aimed to improve the...
Publication date: 8 May 2019
| Publication type: Report
| Theme: Macroeconomics, Exiting the EU & Britain after Brexit
In the wake of Parliament’s rejection of the proposed Brexit deal, there have been discussions between the Government and the Labour Party on a customs union as the basis for the future relationship between the United Kingdom and the European Union. This option also gained substantial support in...
Publication date: 24 Apr 2019
| Publication type: Report
| Theme: Education & Labour
This report establishes for the first time an employment gap between young people from disadvantaged backgrounds and their better-off peers: disadvantaged young people are twice as likely to not be in employment, education or training (NEET). Looking at the regional breakdowns, we see that in the...
Publication date: 27 Mar 2019
| Publication type: Report
| Theme: Employment & Social policy
| Pages: 95
| Report to: Paul Hamlyn Foundation
Executive Summary
Free movement and the extension of EU membership to Eastern and Central European countries have led to a substantial increase in migration to the UK. One result is an increase in the number of pupils who are either migrants themselves or born to recent migrants. In June 2016 the...
Publication date: 1 Feb 2019
| Publication type: Report
| Theme: Employment & Social policy
In 2015 the UK government announced the introduction of a new `National Living Wage' (NLW) that would apply to those aged 25 and above from April 2016. At a rate of £7.20, this represented a significant increase of 7.5% over the existing National Minimum Wage (NMW) rate. Previous research has...
Publication date: 30 Jan 2019
| Publication type: Report
| Theme: Macroeconomics
This Euroframe Report presents an assessment of the economic outlook for 2019 and 2020 focused on the euro area based on a synopsis of the forecasts of Euroframe institutes, including NIESR. Perspectives for UK and CEEs countries are described in Boxes A and B respectively. In the Focus section, we...
Publication date: 13 Dec 2018
| Publication type: Report
| Theme: Education & Labour
| Project: Evaluation of Mathematical Reasoning
| Report to: Education Endowment Fund
The Mathematical Reasoning programme aims to improve mathematical attainment by developing pupils’ understanding of the logical principles underlying mathematics. The Literacy and Morphemes programme aims to improve pupils’ spelling and reading comprehension. Both programmes are delivered to year 2...
Publication date: 26 Nov 2018
| Publication type: Report
| Theme: Macroeconomics, Exiting the EU & Britain after Brexit
Read Garry Young's note on the methodology behind this report here.
This report estimates the economic effects of the government’s proposed Brexit deal that was first published on 14 November 2018, and subsequently expanded.
The impact of any Brexit deal can be broken down into two key components...
Publication date: 8 Nov 2018
| Publication type: Report
| Theme: Education & Labour
The growth of internationally comparative student assessment measures such as the Programme for International Student Assessment (PISA), and the annual publication of the OECDs annual Education at a Glance, provides a global perspective of how children perform on comparable educational tests across...
Publication date: 6 Nov 2018
| Publication type: Report
| Theme: Exiting the EU & Britain after Brexit
Prepared for the Cavendish Coalition for the project:
“Incentivising the domestic workforce and securing clear, reasonable routes for immigration both during and after the UK’s exit from the EU”
Executive summary
The UK’s H&SC workforce is under considerable strain to provide services for an...
Publication date: 11 Oct 2018
| Publication type: Report
| Theme: Exiting the EU & Britain after Brexit
New research by the National Institute of Economic and Social Research (NIESR), commissioned by the Tony Blair Institute for Global Change.
Read the report here
Publication date: 11 Oct 2018
| Publication type: Report
| Theme: Employment & Social policy, Exiting the EU & Britain after Brexit
| Project: Evidence and perceptions in the post-Brexit immigration debate
Funded by the Leverhulme Trust, researchers from NIESR and Birkbeck explored public attitudes to EU immigration and how people use and respond to evidence on the economic impacts of immigration. Based on 12 focus groups with 105 participants in a Leave voting area of the UK, the report tests out...
Publication date: 13 Jul 2018
| Publication type: Report
| Theme: Employment & Social policy
| Pages: 89
| Report to: Education Endowment Foundation
The project
Embedding Formative Assessment (EFA) is a whole-school professional development programme aiming to embed the use of effective formative assessment strategies. Dylan Wiliam and Siobhan Leahy, who are experts in formative assessment, designed the intervention and associated materials....
Publication date: 20 Jun 2018
| Publication type: Report
| Theme: Britain & Finance
| Report to: Department for Work and Pensions
Background
The workplace pension reforms, introduced following the 2008 Pensions Act (and updated as part of the 2011 and 2014 Pensions Acts), require all employers to automatically enrol all eligible employees into a qualifying workplace pension scheme, although employees can choose to opt out....
Publication date: 19 Jun 2018
| Publication type: Report
| Theme: Macroeconomics
| Report to: Sopra Steria
In our accompanying report, Light at the end of the fiscal tunnel?, we highlighted the challenges the Westminster government is facing in providing good quality public services for the people of the United Kingdom at a time of spending reductions. Despite over eight years of austerity, these...
Publication date: 17 May 2018
| Publication type: Report
| Theme: Employment & Social policy
| Project: Trans Awareness in Children and Families Social Worker Education
| Report to: Department for Education
In January 2016 the Women and Equalities Committee published a report on Transgender Equality. In this report evidence was identified that suggested transgender people experience significant levels of inequality across a wide range of policy areas. This included inequality in the provision of...
Publication date: 24 Apr 2018
| Publication type: Report
| Theme: Macroeconomics
| Report to: Sopra Steria
In his recent Spring Statement, the chancellor said that he saw light at the end of the fiscal tunnel. We are afraid that this will turn out to have been an illusion. While public borrowing has been reduced to sustainable levels, our analysis of the prospects for the public finances points to...
Publication date: 6 Apr 2018
| Publication type: Report
| Theme: Trade, Investment & Productivity
| Report to: Joseph Rowntree Foundation
Concern about the UK’s productivity problem has become widespread. Fixing the UK’s productivity problem requires action for the lagging parts of the economy – low pay sectors such as retail and hospitality, the long tail of low-productivity firms, and the five million individuals in the UK lacking...
Publication date: 14 Mar 2018
| Publication type: Report
| Theme: Employment & Social policy
| Project: The impact of welfare reforms and welfare to work programmes: a literature review
| Report to: Equality and Human Rights Commission (EHRC)
This report examines the impact of the welfare reform and welfare-to-work programmes introduced by the 2010–15 Conservative/Liberal Democrat Coalition Government and the Conservative Government elected in May 2015. A particular aim of the review was to examine the evidence about the ways in which...
Publication date: 27 Feb 2018
| Publication type: Report
| Theme: Education & Labour
| Report number: DFE-RR794
| Report to: Department for Education
This report describes a randomised control trial (RCT) into the relative effectiveness of face-to-face compared to blended learning for adult English and maths learning. The report:
describes the RCT design decisions
describes implementation details
provides an assessment of how the trial worked
Publication date: 27 Feb 2018
| Publication type: Report
| Theme: Education & Labour
| Report number: DFE RR791
| Report to: Department for Education
Publication date: 27 Feb 2018
| Publication type: Report
| Theme: Education & Labour
| Report number: DFE-RR792
| Report to: Department for Education
Publication date: 5 Feb 2018
| Publication type: Report
| Theme: Education & Labour, Trade, Investment & Productivity
| Report to: BEIS
Executive summary
Aims and objectives of counterfactual wage research
Over the summer, the National Institute of Economic and Social Research (NIESR) conducted an independent review of the methodology used by the Department for Business, Energy and Industrial Strategy (BEIS) for estimating the cost...
Publication date: 15 Nov 2017
| Publication type: Report
| Theme: Trade, Investment & Productivity, Britain & Finance
| Report to: Association of British Insurers
This research project considers whether buying houses may reduce long-term savings in the UK economy. This may explain the UK’s relatively low investment rate and weaker productivity performance over the long term. The study has two parts. First, we present new evidence on the saving behaviour of...
Publication date: 11 Oct 2017
| Publication type: Report
| Theme: Employment & Social policy
| Report to: Trades Union Congress
To inform debate following the passage of the 2016 Trade Union Act the TUC commissioned UCL/NIESR to undertake a three-pronged investigation into the nature of unions and their effects on employers and employees:
a review of existing literature on union effects
new analyses of the Workplace...
Publication date: 11 Oct 2017
| Publication type: Report
| Theme: Employment & Social policy
| Report to: Trades Union Congress
The aim of this report is to provide an overview of the current research evidence on the economic impact of workplace union representation. Our review focuses on quantitative studies that have been conducted on good quality, nationally-representative samples of British workplaces or employees, and...
Publication date: 11 Oct 2017
| Publication type: Report
| Theme: Employment & Social policy
| Report to: Trades Union Congress
Background to the analysis
To inform debate over the 2016 Trade Union Act the TUC commissioned UCL/NIESR to undertake a three-pronged investigation on the nature of unions and their effects on employers and employees. This comprised:
a review of existing literature on union effects
new analyses of...
Publication date: 4 Jul 2017
| Publication type: Report
| Theme: Employment & Social policy
| Report to: Office of Manpower Economics
This research report by UCL and NIESR describes earnings growth among Pay Review Body (PRB) occupations; compares that growth to earnings growth in comparable non-PRB occupations; and accounts for differences in earnings trajectories between PRB occupations and comparable non-PRB occupations that...
Publication date: 18 May 2017
| Publication type: Report
| Theme: Macroeconomics
NIESR chart pack of the UK’s economic performance across elections since 1992
(These figures have been produced with funding from the Nuffield Foundation as part of its work to ensure public debate in the run-up to the General Election and is informed by independent and rigorous evidence...
Publication date: 12 Apr 2017
| Publication type: Report
| Theme: Employment & Social policy
| Report to: Unions21
This report was commissioned by Unions21 to better understand the changing landscape of the future UK labour market. Its purpose is to a) identify industries with high projected employment growth and b) analyse worker characteristics in these industries, in order to inform subsequent market...
Publication date: 20 Feb 2017
| Publication type: Report
| Theme: Employment & Social policy
| Report to: Office of Manpower Economics
Commissioned by the Office of Manpower Economics, the purpose of this report was to better understand the use of agency staff in the UK public sector, particularly in health and education. The research aimed to outline and improve the evidence base, in order to understand the labour market for...
Publication date: 2 Feb 2017
| Publication type: Report
| Theme: Trade, Investment & Productivity, Employment & Social policy
| Project: Older Workers research using the Workplace Employment Relations Survey
This research examines the working experiences of older individuals and the effects of changes in age composition on workplace performance
Publication date: 7 Dec 2016
| Publication type: Report
| Theme: Exiting the EU & Britain after Brexit
Two issues dominated the UK's Brexit referendum debate: immigration and the economy. But the nature of discussion of these two topics was very different, and to a large extent compartmentalised. During the campaign, there was extensive discussion of the economic impact of Brexit on the UK economy....
Publication date: 31 Oct 2016
| Publication type: Report
| Theme: Employment & Social policy
| Report to: EEF
Abracadabra (ABRA) is a 20-week online literacy programme composed of phonic fluency and comprehension activities based around a series of age-appropriate texts. Four 15-minute sessions per week are delivered by a teaching assistant (TA) to groups of three to five pupils. This report summarises the...
Publication date: 27 Oct 2016
| Publication type: Report
| Theme: Trade, Investment & Productivity, Employment & Social policy
| Report to: EHRC
In 2016, the Department for Business, Innovation and Skills (BIS) and the Equality and Human Rights Commission (EHRC) published two GB-wide reports exploring a programme of research to investigate the prevalence and nature of pregnancy discrimination and disadvantage in the workplace (Adams et al...
Publication date: 17 Oct 2016
| Publication type: Report
| Theme: Employment & Social policy
| Report to: DCLG
In January 2013, Ecorys was commissioned by Department for Communities and Local Government (DCLG) to lead a consortium providing an independent evaluation of the Phase One Troubled Families Programme1 . The evaluation included process, impact and economic strands of work, culminating in a set of...
Publication date: 17 Oct 2016
| Publication type: Report
| Theme: Employment & Social policy
| Report to: DCLG
The purpose of the analysis upon which this report is based was to estimate the impact of participation in the initial phase of the Troubled Families programme on a range of outcomes encompassing benefit receipt, employment, educational participation, child welfare and offending. This analysis...
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