Sarah Jewell

Executive Pay and Performance: Did Bankers’ Bonuses Cause the Crisis?

This paper examines the pay-performance relationship between executive cash compensation (including bonuses) and company performance for a sample of large UK companies, focusing particularly on the financial services industry, since incentive misalignment has been blamed as one of the factors causing the global financial crisis of 2007–2008. Although we find that pay in the financial services sector is high, the cash-plus-bonus pay-performance sensitivity of financial firms is not significantly higher than in other sectors. Consequently, we conclude that it unlikely that incentive structures could be held responsible for inducing bank executives to focus on short-term results.

Winning and losing in the creative industries: an analysis of creative graduates' career opportunities across creative disciplines

Following earlier work looking at overall career difficulties and low economic rewards faced by graduates in creative disciplines, the paper takes a closer look into the different career patterns and economic performance of “Bohemian” graduates across different creative disciplines. While it is widely acknowledged in the literature that careers in the creative field tend to be unstructured, often relying on part-time work and low wages, our knowledge of how these characteristics differ across the creative industries and occupational sectors is very limited. The paper explores the different trajectory and career patterns experienced by graduates in different creative disciplinary fields and their ability to enter creative occupations. Data from the Higher Education Statistical Agency (HESA) are presented, articulating a complex picture of the reality of finding a creative occupation for creative graduates. While students of some disciplines struggle to find full-time work in the creative economy, for others full-time occupation is the norm. Geography plays a crucial role also in offering graduates opportunities in creative occupations and higher salaries. The findings are contextualised in the New Labour cultural policy framework and conclusions are drawn on whether the creative industries policy construct has hidden a very problematic reality of winners and losers in the creative economy.

Gender and Life Satisfaction in the UK

Abstract This contribution analyzes the variations in reported life satisfaction for men and women in the United Kingdom. While average levels of life satisfaction are similar for men and women, the variations in life satisfaction are more marked for women. Analyzing the British Household Panel Survey (BHPS) for 1996–2007, the paper finds that hours of paid work increase life satisfaction for both men and women, while housework hours are statistically significant only for retired men and women. Childcare (for children ages 3 to 4 years) and caring for adults affect womens life satisfaction negatively but are statistically insignificant for men. Some of these differences might be explained by the fact that women and men in the sample assign differing weights to satisfaction with different life dimensions. Job satisfaction, in particular, matters much more to men than to women.

Embedding Arts and Humanities in the Creative Economy: The Role of Graduates in the UK

The recent change in funding structure in the UK higher education system has fuelled an animated debate about the role that arts and humanities (A&H) subjects play not only within higher education but more broadly in the society and the economy. The debate has engaged with a variety of arguments and perspectives, from the intrinsic value of A&H, to their contribution to the broader society and their economic impact, particularly in relation to the creative economy, through knowledge exchange activities. The paper argues that in the current debate very little attention has been placed on the role that A&H graduates play in the economy, through their work after graduation, and specifically in the creative economy. Using Higher Education Statistical Agency data, we analyse the performance of A&H graduates (compared with other graduates) and particularly explore how embedded they are with the creative economy and its associated industries. The results highlight a complex intersection of different subdisciplines of the A&H with the creative economy but also reveal the salary gap and unstable working conditions experienced by graduates in this field.

Interregional migration 'wage premia': the case of creative and science and technology graduates in the UK

Since the seminal contribution by Sjaastad (1962), the so-called ‘human capital migration theory’ has become extremely popular among economists, especially regional economists. The basic idea is that migration itself can be viewed as an investment in human capital. A rational individual would use relocation as a means to maximize long-term utility and would move if the future discounted benefits of relocating outweigh the costs associated with the move.

The Impact of Working While Studying on Educational and Labour Market Outcomes

As a result of the expansion of higher education and changes to student funding in the UK, students are increasingly taking up opportunities to work while studying. Employment during term-time may provide needed funds but takes time away from studying. It may also constitute an investment in ‘informal’ human capital, making graduates more attractive to potential employers. Given the ambiguous effect of working while studying, we investigate whether term-time employment has a detrimental impact on educational attainment and examine whether this is compensated by wage gains arising from transferable skills and work experience. Using survey data from a UK university, we find that students work more for financial than investment reasons and identify a negative effect of term-time employment for students working out of financial necessity or those working with a greater intensity. We find some evidence that individuals who have undertaken term-time employment have higher salaries upon graduation.

Digital technology and creative arts career patterns in the UK creative economy

In this article, we ask what role both digital and artistic human capital play in the creative economy by examining employment patterns of digital technology (DT) and creative arts and design (CAD) graduates. Using student micro-data collected by the Higher Education Statistical Agency (HESA) in the United Kingdom, we investigate the characteristics and location determinants of these graduates. The article deals specifically with understanding how digital and creative skills in the UK are embedded across industries, or are concentrated in creative sub-sectors. Furthermore, it explores the role that these graduates play in each of the different sectors and their financial rewards. Findings suggest that digital technology graduates tend to concentrate in the software and gaming sub-sector of the creative industries, but also are likely to be in embedded creative jobs outside of the creative industries. DT and CAD graduates are more likely to be in a creative job than other graduates. Although they are more likely to be in full-time employment than part-time or self-employment, DT graduates suffer from a higher level of unemployment than CAD graduates.

Men buying sex. Differences between urban and rural areas in the UK

We build on both our theoretical and empirical work on modelling the demand for paid sex (Della Giusta et al., 2009a, 2009b) and examine the demand for paid sex, considering the effects of risky behaviours and attitudes to relationships and to women on demand. We find that those who declare to have purchased sex have both different socio-demographics (older, with fewer children, more educated but with lower professional status), and different sexual and risky behaviours as well as attitudes to relationships. As expected in the light of findings in the literature (well summarised in a 2004 Urban Studies special issue and in more recent literature) a clear city effect in the sample, mostly driven by London, which goes beyond the attitudes captured in the survey and thus combines a mixture of factors related to the supply of paid sex and unobserved characteristics of city-dwelling respondents.

Stigma and Risky Behaviors among Male Clients of Sex Workers in the UK

ABSTRACT Building on existing theoretical work on sex markets, this study uses data from the 2001 British National Survey of Sexual Attitudes and Lifestyles (Natsal) to replicate the analysis of the demand for paid sex. It formally tests the effects of attitudes, risky behaviors, and personal characteristics of a sample of men on the demand for paid sex. Previous theoretical work argues that stigma plays a fundamental role in determining both demand and risk, and in particular due to the presence of stigma, the demands for unpaid sex and for paid sex are not perfect substitutes. This study finds a positive effect of education (proxy for income), negative effects of professional status (proxies for stigma associated with buying sex), positive and significant effects of all risky behavior variables, and no significant effects of variables that measure the relative degree of conservatism in morals.

Graduate Migration and Regional Development

This book aims to integrate and augment current state-of-the-art knowledge on graduate migration and its role in local economic development. Comprising the key scholars working in the field, it draws together an international series of case studies on graduate migration, a recognised critical component of the global pool of labour. Each chapter describes empirically founded approaches to examining the role and characteristics of graduate migration in differing situational contexts, highlighting issues concerning government policy, data and methods.