Papers by John Micklewright
paper I have benefitted greatly from the comments of the discussants, Tim Smeeding and Jane Waldf... more paper I have benefitted greatly from the comments of the discussants, Tim Smeeding and Jane Waldfogel, and of many other participants at the conference. Very helpful comments were also made by Tony Atkinson, Tania
Socioeconomic Gradients in Children's Cognitive Skills: Are CrossCountry Comparisons Robust to Wh... more Socioeconomic Gradients in Children's Cognitive Skills: Are CrossCountry Comparisons Robust to Who Reports Family Background? * The international surveys of pupil achievement-PISA, TIMSS, and PIRLS-have been widely used to compare socioeconomic gradients in children's cognitive abilities across countries. Socioeconomic status is typically measured drawing on children's reports of family or home characteristics rather than information provided by their parents. There is a well established literature based on other survey sources on the measurement error that may result from child reports. But there has been very little work on the implications for the estimation of socioeconomic gradients in test scores in the international surveys, and especially their variation across countries. We investigate this issue drawing on data from PISA and PIRLS, focusing on three socioeconomic indicators for which both child and parental reports are present for some countries: father's occupation, parental education, and the number of books in the family home. Our results suggest that children's reports of their father's occupation provide a reliable basis on which to base comparisons across countries in socioeconomic gradients in reading test scores. The same is not true, however, for children's reports of the number of books in the home-a measure commonly used-while results for parental education are rather mixed.
Any opinions expressed here are those of the author(s) and not those of IZA. Research published i... more Any opinions expressed here are those of the author(s) and not those of IZA. Research published in this series may include views on policy, but the institute itself takes no institutional policy positions. The Institute for the Study of Labor (IZA) in Bonn is a local and virtual international research center and a place of communication between science, politics and business. IZA is an independent nonprofit organization supported by Deutsche Post Foundation. The center is associated with the University of Bonn and offers a stimulating research environment through its international network, workshops and conferences, data service, project support, research visits and doctoral program. IZA engages in (i) original and internationally competitive research in all fields of labor economics, (ii) development of policy concepts, and (iii) dissemination of research results and concepts to the interested public. IZA Discussion Papers often represent preliminary work and are circulated to enco...
The Dynamics of Child Poverty: conceptual and measurement issues
SSRN Electronic Journal, 2020
We describe a new book on measuring poverty by the late Tony Atkinson, published by Princeton Uni... more We describe a new book on measuring poverty by the late Tony Atkinson, published by Princeton University Press. At Atkinson's request we edited the incomplete manuscript that he left at his death. We describe this process, the additions we made (which include afterwords by François Bourguignon and Nick Stern), the content and structure of the book along with Atkinson's approach to his subject, and parallel developments in the World Bank's measurement of global poverty that were stimulated by the report of the Commission on Global Poverty, written by Atkinson, from which this book was developed. The new book is more than four hundred published pages but remains unfinished.
Oxford Review of Education, 2018
Review of Income and Wealth, 2017
is universally celebrated for his outstanding contributions to the measurement and analysis of in... more is universally celebrated for his outstanding contributions to the measurement and analysis of inequality, but he never saw the study of inequality as a separate branch of economics. He was an economist in the classical sense, rejecting any sub-field labelling of his interests and expertise, and he made contributions right across economics. His death on 1 January 2017 deprived the world of both an intellectual giant and a deeply committed public servant in the broadest sense of the term. This collective tribute highlights the range, depth and importance of Tony's enormous legacy, the product of over fifty years' work.
Education Sciences, 2015
We show how young people's expectations about application to university change during the teenage... more We show how young people's expectations about application to university change during the teenage years, drawing on the Longitudinal Study of Young People in England (LSYPE). We reveal the pattern of change by family background, prior attainment at the end of primary school (measured by Key Stage 2 tests) and, critically, the combination of the two. We document the relationship between expectations about university application and the decision on whether to stay on in full-time education at 16. We point to the importance of schools in sustaining or changing expectations. We relate the expectations reported by the teenagers in LSYPE to their actual university application decisions by age 20 or 21. Expectations are high but not universally high. Family background gaps in expectations widen during the teenage years.
The Impact of Kindergarten Divestiture on Household Welfare in Central Asia
Household Welfare in Central Asia, 1997
The Soviet period saw the development of a significant public kindergarten system in Central Asia... more The Soviet period saw the development of a significant public kindergarten system in Central Asia. About a half of children in the target age group in 1991 attended kindergartens in Kazakhstan, over 40 per cent in Uzbekistan, and around a third in Kyrgyzstan. Within the kindergarten system — as with other types of social service — state-owned enterprises (including collective farms) had traditionally been major providers of facilities, reflecting the dual productive and welfare functions of enterprises. Indeed, municipal kindergartens (those run by the Ministry of Education) accounted for only a quarter of total kindergartens in Kazakhstan and Kyrgyzstan in 1991 and a third in Uzbekistan.
Transfers and Exchange between Households in Uzbekistan
Household Welfare in Central Asia, 1997
Studies of poverty relief in the industrialised world typically focus on the role of the state. O... more Studies of poverty relief in the industrialised world typically focus on the role of the state. On the other hand, discussion of social security in less-developed countries often focuses on the role of private rather than public safety nets (see, for example, Ahmad et al., 1991). Private, or ‘inter-household’, transfers may significantly change consumption possibilities. Townsend (1994), for example, finds changes in household consumption in three poor Indian villages to be little related to changes in the households’ own incomes or other relevant characteristics, once having controlled for average village consumption. The implication is that households within the villages provide substantial support to one another.
Discussion of transmission of socio-economic status from parents to children needs to consider ge... more Discussion of transmission of socio-economic status from parents to children needs to consider gender differences in both generations. We consider each parent and their different links to outcomes for boys and girls using data for 30 countries. We relate children"s cognitive ability recorded in tests of maths, science and reading at age 15 to the years of education of mothers and of fathers, concentrating on children with both natural parents present. The data come from the 2003 round of the Programme for International Student Assessment (PISA), co-ordinated by the Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development (OECD). The results (focusing on maths) show (i) it is more common for father"s education to have a greater association with children"s achievement; (ii) this seems particularly true of sons; (iii) there is more variation across countries in the differences between fathers and mothers than between sons and daughters; (iv) there is some suggestion that mothers" education has somewhat more association with daughters" ability than with sons"; (v) the interaction of mother"s and father"s education typically has a positive association with the child"s ability. However, there are substantial differences across countries in these patterns.
DP173 Modelling Energy Demand and Household Welfare Using Micro-Data
The paper is concerned with the empirical modelling of domestic demand for energy in the United K... more The paper is concerned with the empirical modelling of domestic demand for energy in the United Kingdom at the level of the individual household (most previous British work has used aggregate time-series data). The paper develops a two-stage budgeting model of the household's demand for energy conditional on its ownership of durables. Preferences at both stages of the budgeting process are determined implicitly by the cost functions we specify, the almost Ideal form at the first and the Gorman Polar form at the second stage. At ...
Modelling Energy Demand in the UK Using Micro-data
Fiscal Studies, 2011
The Effectiveness of English Secondary Schools for Pupils of Different Ability Levels * 'League t... more The Effectiveness of English Secondary Schools for Pupils of Different Ability Levels * 'League table' information on school effectiveness in England generally relies on either a comparison of the average outcomes of pupils by school, e.g. mean exam scores, or on estimates of the average value added by each school. These approaches assume that the information parents and policy-makers need most to judge school effectiveness is the average achievement level or gain in a particular school. Yet schools can be differentially effective for children with differing levels of prior attainment. We present evidence on the extent of differential effectiveness in English secondary schools, and find that even the most conservative estimate suggests that around one quarter of schools in England are differentially effective for students of differing prior ability levels. This affects an even larger proportion of children as larger schools are more likely to be differentially effective.
Is Getting Pupils from Poorer Backgrounds through the Doors Enough?
Family Background and University Success, 2016
What is the Role of Prior Attainment?
Family Background and University Success, 2016
Male Unemployment and the Family Expenditure Survey 1972-80*: Male Unemployment and the Family Expenditure Survey 1972-80*
Oxford Bull Econ Stat, 2009
How big was response bias to PISA 2003?
The Strange Case of British Earnings-Related Unemployment Benefit
Journal of Social Policy, Sep 30, 1989
ABSTRACTThe abolition in 1982 of the Earnings-Related Supplement (ERS) to unemployment benefit, w... more ABSTRACTThe abolition in 1982 of the Earnings-Related Supplement (ERS) to unemployment benefit, which had been introduced in 1966, left the UK with no element of income support for the unemployed linked to previous earnings. The ERS scheme represents an important case study of economic and social policy but it has been little researched hitherto. The paper examines the history of ERS, showing how the original legislation and subsequent development produced a benefit that bore little relation to schemes in other countries. Unpublished administrative data on the receipt of ERS are used to help document the scheme's failings, and the paper closes by placing ERS within the context of the development of unemployment insurance in Britain.
Scope, review of approaches, and evidence from the past
The Great Recession and the Distribution of Household Income, 2012
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Papers by John Micklewright