Lorraine Dearden

• BEc (Hons), LLB, MSc, PhD
• Head of Department at University College London

Air pollution, greenspace and noise are interrelated environmental factors with the potential to influence human health outcomes. Research has measured these exposures in diverse ways across the globe, but no study has yet performed a country-wide analysis of air pollution, greenspace, and noise in England. This study examined cross-sectional PM2.5...

Research to date suggests that air pollution may affect children’s cognitive development. This study followed 12,159 children in the Millennium Cohort Study in England for 17 years to assess the impacts of lifetime PM2.5 exposure at home and school on cognitive performance while accounting for the inter-related environmental factors of greenness an...

We use a large and novel administrative dataset to investigate returns to different university ‘degrees’ (subject-institution combinations) in the United Kingdom. Conditioning on a rich set of background characteristics, we find substantial variation in returns across degrees with similar selectivity levels, suggesting students’ degree choices matt...

Evidence about the impact of air pollution on cognitive development of children has been growing but remains inconclusive. To investigate the association of air pollution exposure and the cognitive development of children in the UK Millennium Cohort Study. Longitudinal study of a nationally representative sample of 13 058–14 614 singleton births, 2...

Background: To monitor stability of care, the proportion of children in England who have experienced three or more placements in the preceding 12-month period is published in government statistics. However, these annual snapshots cannot capture the complexity and heterogeneity of children's longitudinal care histories. Objective: To describe the...

Changing Higher Education for a Changing World draws on the outcomes of the cutting-edge research programmes of the UK-based Centre for Global Higher Education, the world’s largest social science research centre focused on higher education and its future. In countries with incomes at European levels, the majority of all families now have connection...

Introduction There is some evidence that exam results are worse when students are acutely exposed to air pollution. Studies investigating the association between air pollution and academic attainment have been constrained by small sample sizes. Methods Cross sectional educational attainment data (2009–2015) from students aged 15–16 years in Cardif...

Much research and policy attention has been on socio‐economic gaps in participation at university, but less attention has been paid to socio‐economic gaps in graduates’ earnings. This paper addresses this shortfall using tax and student loan administrative data to investigate the variation in earnings of English graduates by socio‐economic backgrou...

To understand and design student loan systems, realistic earnings and/or income projections for current and future graduates are crucial. In this paper, Current Population Survey (CPS) data from the US is used to demonstrate empirical approaches that can be exploited to simulate lifetime income and earnings profiles for graduates which are needed t...

This paper simulates student loan schemes for Brazil. A copula approach is applied to simulate dynamic earnings paths for graduates. Repayment patterns are then simulated for time-based and income-contingent loan designs. The results show that the Brazilian time-based scheme involved unsustainable repayment burdens for many graduates and contribute...

The Japanese higher education sector has seen increases in tuition with stagnant household incomes in a society where family support for university students has been the norm. Student loans from the government have grown rapidly to sustain the gradual increase in university enrolments. These time-based repayment loans (TBRLs) have created financial...

Introduction There is a lack of evidence of the adverse effects of air pollution and pollen on cognition for people with air quality related health conditions. This study explored the effects of air quality and respiratory health conditions on educational attainment for 18,241 pupils across the city of Cardiff, United Kingdom. Objectives and Appro...

Introduction The Secure Anonymised Information Linkage (SAIL) databank facilitated linkage of routinely collected health and education data, high spatial resolution pollution modelling and daily pollen measurements for 18,241 pupils in 7 cross-sectional cohorts across Cardiff city, UK, to investigate effects of air quality and respiratory health co...

Introduction: There is a lack of evidence on the adverse effects of air pollution on cognition for people with air quality-related health conditions. We propose that educational attainment, as a proxy for cognition, may increase with improved air quality. This study will explore whether asthma and seasonal allergic rhinitis, when exacerbated by ac...

There is wide agreement that the US student loan system faces significant problems. Seven million borrowers are in default and many more are not repaying for reasons such as returning to school, or economic hardship. The stress of repayments faced by many students results at least in part from the design of US student loans. Specifically, loans are...

There is wide agreement that the US student loan system faces significant problems. Seven million borrowers are in default and many more are not repaying for reasons such as returning to school, or economic hardship. The stress of repayments faced by many students results at least in part from the design of US student loans. Specifically, loans are...

Background and Objectives There is a lack of evidence of the adverse effects of air pollution and pollen on cognition for people with air quality-related health conditions. The CORTEX project combined routinely collected health and education data, high spatial resolution air pollution modelling, and daily pollen measurements for 18,241 pupils livin...

Background There is a lack of evidence of the adverse effects which air quality has on cognition for people with air quality-related health conditions, these are not widely documented in the literature. Educational attainment, as a proxy for cognition, may increase with improved air quality. Objectives Prepare individual and household level linked...

Background Outcomes for children in care vary by the stability of their placements (for example, more placement changes have been associated with poorer educational attainment). Official statistics describing the stability of care histories for children in England are limited to placement changes within a 12-month period. These annual statistical ‘...

Objectives We used national data to study differences in academic achievement between 5-year-old children with an isolated oral cleft and the general population. We also assessed differences by cleft type. Methods Children born in England with an oral cleft were identified in a national cleft registry. Their records were linked to databases of hos...

In this article, we compare the two main types of student loans used to finance postsecondary education: mortgage-type loans, which are repaid over a set period of time and mainly used in the United States; and income-contingent loans, which are repaid depending on students’ future income and used in Australia and England. We argue that the major c...

Objectives In England, approximately one in thirty children spend time in out-of-home care (OHC) by age 18.Use of OHC is known to vary across the country, which may be explained in part by ethnic group differences in the risk of being placed in OHC. This study uses linked administrative data to determine whether local variation in the cumulative pr...

Objectives In England, approximately one in thirty children spend time in out-of-home care (OHC) by age 18.Use of OHC is known to vary across the country, which may be explained in part by ethnic group differences in the risk of being placed in OHC. This study uses linked administrative data to determine whether local variation in the cumulative pr...

Exiting and re-entering out-of-home care (OHC) is considered a disruption to permanence which may have long-lasting, negative consequences for children due to a lack of stability and continuity. Each year approximately one-third of children in OHC in England exit, but information is lacking on rates of re-entries and associated factors. Using natio...

The US student loan system is currently in crisis. US graduates owe $1.3 trillion in student loans; seven million borrowers are in default and even more are in arrears. The impact on borrowers is catastrophic. We argue that this is mainly due to the fact that the US operates mortgage-type student loans: these are repaid over a set period of time, w...

Background Placement of children in out-of-home care indicates serious childhood adversity and is associated with poor social, educational, and health outcomes, including high rates of mental health issues and premature death. Each year 0·5% of children in England are living in out-of-home care but little is known about the cumulative proportion en...

Placement in out-of-home care (OHC) indicates serious childhood adversity and is associated with multiple adverse outcomes. Each year 0.5% of children in England live in OHC but evidence is lacking on the cumulative proportion who enter during childhood and how this varies over time. We measured the proportion of children born between 1992 and 2011...

The Education Maintenance Allowance (EMA) was a cash transfer worth up to £1,200 per year, paid to 16- to 19-year-olds from low-income households conditional on post-compulsory education participation. The EMA was intended to help achieve the government’s priority of closing the gap in attainment between those from poorer and more affluent backgrou...

Understanding how higher education (HE) finance policy can affect HE decisions is important for understanding how governments can promote human capital accumulation. Yet there is a severe lack of evidence on the effectiveness of student aid in encouraging HE participation outside of the US, and none at all for the UK. This paper exploits a reform t...

Previous research has found that children who are born later in the academic year have lower educational attainment, on average, than children who are born earlier in the year, especially at younger ages; much less is known about the mechanisms that drive this inequality. The paper uses two complementary identification strategies to estimate an upp...

This paper makes use of newly linked administrative data to better understand the determinants of higher education participation amongst individuals from socio-economically disadvantaged backgrounds. It is unique in being able to follow two cohorts of students in England - those who took GCSEs in 2001-02 and 2002-03 - from age 11 to age 20. The fin...

This paper investigates the financial implications of the higher education funding regime to be introduced in English universities in September 2012. The analysis is based on simulated lifetime earnings profiles among graduates, linked to imputed information on parental incomes and institution and course choices. We find that, on average, total gro...

The introduction of top‐up fees for home‐domiciled undergraduate tuition in England from 2006–07 – and their planned increase in 2012–13 – raises important issues for university funding in Scotland, since it abolished tuition fees for Scottish and EU students in 2000–01. This paper focuses on what the increase in resources directed at English unive...

This paper compares patterns of private school attendance in the UK and Australia. About 6.5% of school children in the UK attend a private school, while 33% do so in Australia. We use comparable household panel data from the two countries to model attendance at a private school at age 15 or 16 as a function of household income and other child and...

‘League table’ information on school effectiveness in England generally relies either on a comparison of the average outcomes of pupils by school (for example, mean exam scores) or on estimates of the average value added by each school. These approaches assume that the information parents and policymakers need most to judge school effectiveness is...

The UK Department for Education (DfE) calculates contextual value added (CVA) measures of school performance using administrative data that contain only a limited set of explanatory variables. Differences in schools' intakes regarding characteristics such as mother's education are not accounted for due to the lack of background information in the d...

Understanding how policy can affect university participation is important for understanding how governments can promote human capital accumulation. In this paper, we estimate the separate impacts of tuition fees and maintenance grants on the decision to enter university in the UK. We use Labour Force Survey data covering 1992-2007, a period of impo...

This paper shows that there are large differences in cognitive and socio-emotional development between children from rich and poor backgrounds at the age of 3, and that this gap widens by the age of 5. Children from poor backgrounds also face much less advantageous "early childhood caring environments" than children from better off families. For ex...

In this paper we illustrate both the usefulness of copulas as a sta-tistical technique for modelling dependence in earnings across the life-cycle, as well as contrast it with more traditional approaches for mod-elling earnings dynamics that appear in the literature. Our model can be estimated using a two-period panel on earnings, in contrast to mor...

This paper looks at the strengths and weaknesses of using administrative data for economic policy evaluation. It does this by looking at how school administrative data has been used to assess school effectiveness and the impact of month of birth on educational outcomes with varying degrees of success. It concludes that if there is some natural expe...

This chapter reports some findings from the first three surveys of the Millennium Cohort Study (MCS) on the nature and extent of ethnic differences in early childhood environment and outcomes up to age 5. It examines ethnic differences in child outcomes, together with background and mediating factors that are likely to have impacted on these outcom...

In this paper we use English school level data from 1993 to 2008 aggregated up to small neighbourhood areas to look at the determinants of the demand for private education in England from the ages of 7 until 15 (the last year of compulsory schooling). We focus on the relative importance of price and quality of schooling. However, there are likely t...

Accurate estimates of the extent of ethnic parity amongst benefit claimants are very important for policymakers who provide interventions for these groups. We use new administrative data on benefit claimants in Great Britain to document differences in labour market outcomes between Ethnic Minority and White claimants, both before and after controll...

Accurate estimates of the extent of ethnic parity amongst benefit claimants are very important for policymakers who provide interventions for these groups. We use new administrative data on benefit claimants in Great Britain to document differences in labour market outcomes between Ethnic Minority and White claimants, both before and after controll...

In this paper we offer an appraisal of the economics of education research area, charting its history as a field and discussing the ways in which economists have contributed both to education research and to education policy-making. In particular, we highlight the theoretical and methodological contributions that economists have made to the field o...

This paper evaluates a United Kingdom pilot study designed to test whether a means-tested conditional cash transfer paid to 16- to 18-year-olds for staying in full-time education is an effective way of reducing the proportion of school dropouts. The transfer’s impact is substantial: In the first year, full-time education participation rates increas...

A significant gap exists in the UK between the employment rate for Ethnic Minorities and that for Whites. From a policy perspective, it is important to know whether this gap is due to differences in the characteristics of White and Ethnic Minority groups (which reduce the employability of Ethnic Minority groups relative to Whites) or whether it res...

This article undertakes a quantitative analysis of substantial reforms to the system of higher education (HE) finance in England, first announced in 2004 and revised in 2007. The reforms introduced deferred fees for HE, payable by graduates through the tax system via income-contingent repayments on loans subsidised by the government. The article us...

This paper evaluates whether means-tested grants paid to secondary students are an effective way of reducing the proportion of school dropouts. We look at this problem using matching techniques on a pilot study carried out in England during 1999 and 2000 using a specially designed dataset that ensures that valid comparisons between our pilot and co...

Higher education (HE) participation has expanded dramatically in England over the last half century; however, access to HE amongst particular groups of students remains a major policy concern. This report makes use of newly linked administrative data to better understand the determinants of participation in HE - and participation in high status uni...

This report contains the findings of an evaluation of the impact of the Education Maintenance Allowance (EMA) using administrative data. We analyse the effects of its initial piloting - and subsequent extension - on participation in full-time education at ages 16 and 17, and on educational achievement at ages 18 and 19. Furthermore, we conduct subg...

Standard real business cycle models must rely on total factor productivity (TFP) shocks to explain the observed comovement of consumption, investment, and hours worked. This paper shows that a neoclassical model consistent with observed heterogeneity in labor supply and consumption can generate comovement in the absence of TFP shocks. Intertemporal...

The impact of date of birth on cognitive test scores is well documented across many countries, with the youngest children in each academic year performing more poorly, on average, than the older members of their cohort. However, relatively little is known about the driving forces behind these differences, at least in England; nor does there appear...

Report description: The NNI was launched in 2001 to provide high quality childcare in the most disadvantaged neighbourhoods of England, to help parents into employment, reduce child poverty and boost children’s development. By 2005 45,000 new childcare places had been created in approximately 1,400 neighbourhood nurseries. This report brings togeth...

This study assessed the impact of NNI on parental employment, use of formal childcare, and take-up of benefits and tax credits, particularly for disadvantaged groups such as lone parents, low income families and ethnic minority groups.

It is standard in the literature on training to use wages as a sufficient statistic for productivity. This paper examines the effects of work-related training on direct measures of productivity. Using a new panel of British industries 1983-96 and a variety of estimation techniques we find that work-related training is associated with significantly...

This paper uses the Millennium Cohort Study to look at ethnic differences in birth outcomes for a cohort of English children born in 2000 and 2001. There is an increasingly large literature showing that longer gestation and higher birthweight are positively associated with cognitive and non-cognitive outcomes later in life, so understanding sources...

It is standard in the literature on training to use wages as a sufficient statistic for productivity. This paper examines the effects of work-related training on direct measures of productivity. Using a new panel of British industries 1983–96 and a variety of estimation techniques we find that work-related training is associated with significantly...

Regression, matching, control function and instrumental variables methods for recovering the effect of education on individual earnings are reviewed for single treatments and sequential multiple treatments with and without heterogeneous returns. The sensitivity of the estimates once applied to a common data set is then explored. We show the importa...

Since Labour came to power in May 1997, there have been substantial increases in spending aimed at helping families with formal childcare, early education and the work-life balance. We look at the effects of these reforms and at the proposals of the parties in this area.

This paper evaluates whether a means tested grants paid to secondary students are an effective way of reducing the proportion of school drop-outs. We look at this problem using matching techniques on a pilot study carried out in England during 1999 and 2000 using a specially designed dataset that ensures that valid comparisons between our pilot and...