Robert A. Wilson

Part-time work and full-time higher education

ABSTRACT This paper reports the results of a random sample survey of term-time employment amongst full-time undergraduates in four institutions. There is a belief that the incidence of employment is increasing, with detrimental effects for academic performance, but the supporting evidence is typically drawn from studies of specific institutions and/or specific groups of students. This paper offers a more widely-based estimate of the incidence of employment, analyses who works and why, and estimates the contribution of employment to student income. The paper suggests that the current focus on earnings and hours is limiting and that widely drawn ‘employment profiles˚s need to be identified and linked to academic constraints in order to identify the range of consequences of student employment.

Staying on in full-time education : the educational participation rate of 16-year olds

This paper presents a time-series analysis of the socioeconomic factors influencing the propensity of sixteen-year-olds to stay on in full-time education in England and Wales. The econometric methodology employed relies on cointegration and general to specific techniques. The results suggest that the main factors influencing staying on are the rate of return to education, changing social class structure, unemployment rates, and the introduction of special employment and training measures such as the Youth Training Scheme. Copyright 1991 by The London School of Economics and Political Science.

Explanations of the demand for labour in the United Kingdom engineering sector

This paper presents a set of employment functions for nine individual engineering industries using annual data for the period 1954–1987 for the United Kingdom. A brief review alternative theoretical specifications is undertaken. A set of co-integrating regressions is computed to establish the existence of a long-run equilibrium relationship between employment and inter alia output and real wages. Based on the results of the co-integration exercise, full unrestricted dynamic equations are obtained and these are then reduced to a more parsimonious representation. The finally preferred restricted models are then tested against a number of diagnostic statistical criteria to establish their robust and efficient properties. The value of these equations for explaining past and predicting future employment and training in the engineering sector is assessed.

Who does workforce planning well? : workforce review team rapid review summary

PURPOSEnThis paper sets out to disseminate new knowledge about workforce planning, a crucial health sector issue. The Health Select Committee criticised NHS Englands failure to develop and apply effective workforce planning. The Workforce Review Team (WRT) commissioned the Institute for Employment Research, Warwick University, to undertake a rapid review of global literature to identify good practice. A workforce planning overview, its theoretical principles, good practice exemplars are provided before discussing their application to healthcare.nnnDESIGN/METHODOLOGY/APPROACHnThe literature review, undertaken September-November 2007, determined the current workforce planning evidence within and outside health service provision and any consensus on successful workforce planning.nnnFINDINGSnMuch of the literature was descriptive and there was a lack of comparative or evaluative research-based evidence to inform U.K. healthcare workforce planning. Workforce planning practices were similar in other countries.nnnPRACTICAL IMPLICATIONSnThere was no evidence to challenge current WRT approaches to NHS England workforce planning. There are a number of indications about how this might be extended and improved, given additional resources. The evidence-base for workforce planning would be strengthened by robust and authoritative studies.nnnORIGINALITY/VALUEnSystematic workforce planning is a key healthcare quality management element. This review highlights useful information that can be turned into knowledge by informed application to the NHS. Best practice in other sectors and other countries appears to warrant exploration.

Quantifying the employment effects of micro-electronics

The paper attempts to quantify some of the compensatory effects on employment which may offset the direct displacement effects of faster technological change. It is argued that technological change will not necessarily increase unemployment levels. There are a number of compensating effects which may reduce and even outweigh any initial displacement effects. The study uses simulation techniques with a detailed model of the UK economy. One conclusion is that, even if the UK does not innovate as fast as its major competitors, a more rapid rate of diffusion of new technology may result in higher employment than would otherwise be the case.

Modelling and Forecasting the Structure of Employment in the United Kingdom

The objective of this paper is to describe the way in which the Institute for Employment Research (IER)1 has approached the problem of modelling and forecasting changes in the structure of employment in the UK. The emphasis is on the methodology rather than on providing full detail of the forecasts. These can be found in the IER’s Review of the Economy and Employment, published annually, and related publications (see also chapter 4).

Forecasting economic activity rates

Abstract This paper develops a new set of models for projecting labour market activity rates for the UK economy. The Department of Employment currently publishes annual projections with a 10–15 year time horizon. The present research was aimed at improving the methodology used for these forecasts. The models developed attempt to reflect, as fully as possible, the behavioural relationships which are involved in the decision to actively participate in the workforce. As such, they draw on current theoretical contributions to the literature on labour supply. Additionally, account is taken of recent advances in the economic analysis of time series to obtain forecasting equations, which are derived from a set of co-integrated equilibrium relationships. The newly derived equations are applied to forecast activity rates, for a number of male and female age cohorts, over the period 1990–2000. Continuation of trend or an assumption of no change are used for establishing future values of the key determining variables. The results are compared against existing models which rely heavily on trend and dummy variables. The new models developed here are found to produce projections which, whilst broadly comparable to these generated from the existing equations, nevertheless show some important differences.

Intellectual property, technological advantage and trade performance of UK manufacturing industries

The technological advantage of advanced countries is often cited as a potential source of comparative advantage in world trade, although with internatonal mobility of capital this may not be sufficient to retain domestic production. Net trad volumes for a panel of UK manufacturing industries are investigated using two measures of industry-specific technological advantage, one absolute (innovations) and one relative (patents). It is demonstrated that the determining factors of UK manufacturing trade performance do include technological advantage. An all-manufacturing estimate of trade determination is derived which could be of use in forecasting, by pooling industry level data. However it is shown that using a single data panel makes it difficult to produce a statistically acceptable equation because the underlying industry parameters vary considerably across the panel. Separate technology sub-group estimates of the impact of innovation on net trade volumes are also derived which are more statistically acc...

The quality of prescribing in general practice.

General practitioner prescribing is a subject of legitimate interest to all those concerned with the quality of patient care. The analysis of prescribing and cost data can reveal much about this quality. Suggests that both general practitioners and those who administer and advise on family practitioner services will need to understand the issues involved. Warns that, taken in isolation, prescribing data can be misleading, and it must be compared with other aspects of patient care. Simple calculations can suggest areas of possible under-prescribing and over-prescribing, and in turn lead to consideration of the criteria for diagnosis of common chronic diseases such as asthma and diabetes, as well as their subsequent management. Suggests that the prescribing of both new drugs and those of dubious merit is a subject for particular scrutiny, and those who prescribe these drugs must accept the duty of extra vigilance this imposes on them.

Modelling UK occupational employment

This paper uses annual data from successive UK Labour Force Surveys to model occupational trends over the period 1981 to 1999. Time series models are developed for some nine occupational groups across 17 industrial sectors. Various economic variables, such as output, wages, unemployment, export and import shares are combined with different technology trend and interactive dummy terms to identify the most significant determinants of the changing demand for occupational skills. Data sets are pooled to overcome problems of shortages of degrees of freedom and to assist in the identification of the most statistically robust relationships. This methodology extends the analysis of occupational employment shares beyond the simple extrapolative approaches that have traditionally been applied.