Working Paper Series

Working Paper Series

The Department of Social Policy multidisciplinary working paper series publishes high quality research papers across the broad field of social policy.

Latest publications

AIED and EdTech Procurement: Challenges for Policy and Governance
Velislava Hillman, Yujeong Hwang, Simon Walker, Peter Wilson

Abstract: This report presents the outcomes of a recent roundtable consultation which addressed the challenges in procurement and governance of artificial intelligence for education (AIED) and educational technologies (EdTech) across all educational sectors in the UK. The consultation brought together representatives from higher education, further education, primary and secondary schools across the country to discuss the financial, regulatory, and operational barriers to effective AIED and EdTech procurement. The event aimed to crystallize current issues, propose necessary actions for short- and long-term procurement strategies, and outline a policy framework for better procurement and governance. Key themes included the lack of transparency in procurement processes, inadequate enforcement of data privacy and security standards, and the need for centralised and standardised frameworks to guide future AIED and EdTech procurement. Recommendations were formulated, focusing on enhancing regulatory oversight with stronger enforcement mechanisms, establishing clear standards for vendors, and increasing students’ and teachers’ involvement in decision-making processes. The report from this discussion aims to inform policy proposals to be presented to the Department for Education (DfE) and the Information Commissioner’s Office (ICO), with further public consultation planned later in the year.

Keywords: EdTech procurement, audit, public registry, primary and secondary schools, Further Education, Higher Education, AI

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‘I have no problems because I am white’: Understanding immigrants’ wellbeing and its relationship with the destination population’s attitudes towards immigrants.
Michaela Šedovič

Abstract: How do interactions with non-migrants affect immigrants’ wellbeing? Drawing on novel qualitative data for a new immigrant destination (Slovakia), I examine this under-researched question from the immigrants’ perspective. I investigate how their wellbeing is related to contacts with non-migrants and immigrants’ interpretations of non-migrants’ behaviour and attitudes. Using thematic analysis, I explore immigrants’ accounts of the impact of these contacts. First, I demonstrate that different forms of intergroup interaction collectively contribute to immigrants’ wellbeing and need to be studied concurrently. Next, I show that immigrants understand non-migrants’ attitudes and the importance of immigrants’ ethnicity/race and social class for their experience in Slovakia, and how these characteristics hierarchise immigrants in the perception of the Slovak population. Immigrants are forced into roles depending on their position in the hierarchy (e.g., an expat, a spouse of a Slovak, a migrant worker). Third, immigrants consistently feel treated as a part of a group and in their assigned role. Lastly, they feel unable to leave the migrant identity, which forces them to perform the role of a “good migrant”, especially in contact with institutions. My findings speak to existing quantitative research and identify that the mechanism linking migrants’ subjective wellbeing with the destination population’s attitudes/behaviour is the combined extent and character of all immigrants’ social interactions.

Key words: subjective wellbeing, immigrants, intergroup contact, attitudes towards immigrants, new destination country, Slovakia

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The Misuse of Citizenship and Residence by Investment: Going beyond the FATF/OECD Report to Assess Key Risks
Kristin Surak

Abstract: Citizenship by investment (CBI, or “golden passport”) and residence by investment (RBI, or “golden visa”) schemes, have come under criticism as potential tools for money laundering, evading taxes, and committing financial crimes. However empirical work on these themes remains limited. This working paper takes as its starting point the most thorough report on these issues to date, “The Misuse of Citizenship and Residency by Investment Programmes” by the OECD/FATF, to ask: What and where are the wider risks involving residence, citizenship, and identity documents with respect to identity laundering, money laundering, and tax evasion or avoidance? To answer this question, it draws on nine years of fieldwork in 19 countries and a new dataset on investment migration. First, it addresses scope issues, identifying several modes of acquiring citizenship or residence based on wealth that carry similar vulnerabilities to investment migration programs and that should be taken into account when developing problem based approaches to risk mitigation. Next it assesses the scale of actual CBI and RBI offerings, identifying typically ignored cases that are particularly vulnerable to misuse, and it fills in absences in the depiction of the investment migration ecosystem by including powerful but overlooked actors and relationships. Finally, it assesses risks related to identity laundering, money laundering, and tax. Overall, it shows that risks in these three areas operate through building profiles that are legible and acceptable to financial institutions as indica of a person’s relationship to a jurisdiction and that can be used to establish legal “substance” or techniques around “ghosting.” As such, a wider range of possibilities for acquiring citizenship or residence based on financial means –beyond merely investment migration programs – needs to be taken into account if financial crime risks are to be fully addressed. Though this working paper carries over the risk-framing from the FATF report, it closes by proposing that future research and policy-making address actual “harms” rather than posited “risks.”

Keywords: investment migration, citizenship by investment, residence by investment, money laundering, financial crimes, tax

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2024

Degrees of vulnerability to poverty: A low-income dynamics approach for Chile
Joaquín Prieto-Suarez
Keywords: Chile; Latin America; longitudinal data; middle class; poverty dynamics; vulnerability to poverty

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2023

Perceptions Matter: Quasi-Experimental Evidence on the Effects of Spain’s New Minimum Income on Households’ Financial Wellbeing
Eugenia Bilbao-Goyoaga
Keywords: Financial Wellbeing, Subjective Wellbeing, Minimum Income, Poverty, Quasi-Experiment, Synthetic Control Method

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COVID-19 Testing, Tracing and Isolating Strategies in the UK (England)
Anne West
Keywords: COVID-19, TTI, testing, contact tracing, isolation strategies

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2022

Household Joblessness in US Metropolitan Areas during the COVID19 Pandemic: Polarization and the Role of Educational Profiles
Thomas Biegert, Berkay Ozcan, and Magdalena Rossetti-Youlton
Keywords: 
household joblessness, COVID19, polarization, educational heterogeneity, educational homogamy

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Effects of team diversity on performance, perceptions, and predictions: Experimental evidence of gender composition and language
Valentina Contreras, Chiara Orsini, Berkay Ozcan, and Johann Koehler
Keywords: 
Peer effects, Higher education, Gender, Linguistic diversity

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Hostility of lived environment as a determinant of immigrants’ life satisfaction
Case of England and Wales
Michaela Šedovič
Keywords:
 subjective wellbeing, contact theory, attitudes towards immigrants, immigrants‘ integration

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The impact of centre-based childcare on non-cognitive skills of young children
Greta Morando & Lucinda Platt
Keywords: centre-based childcare, child socio-emotional development, Growing Up in Ireland

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Age at marriage and marital stability: Evidence from China
Jorge Garcia-Hombrados and Berkay Ozcan
Keywords: Age at marriage, divorce, legal age of marriage, China

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Edtech procurement matters: It needs a coherent solution, clear governance and market standards
Velislava Hillman
Keywords: edtech, data privacy, edtech procurement, children, education

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School funding and resourcing policies- Meeting the needs of disadvantaged pupils in France, Poland, UK (England), China, New Zealand, Singapore
Anne West, Sarah Ang, Valentin Calori, Ning Wang, Frederick Waters and Julia Wodzinska
Key words: school funding, resourcing, compensatory funding, needs, disadvantage, equality of opportunity

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2021

Poverty traps and affluent shields: Modelling the persistence of income position in Chile
Joaquín Prieto
Key words: Longitudinal data; poverty persistence; affluence persistence; income mobility; Chile; Latin America.

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2020

How does children’s time allocation affect their noncognitive skills? Evidence from four developing countries
Grace Chang
Key words: Child labour, non-cognitive skills, time use.

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Reporting COVID-19 deaths in Austria, France, Germany, Italy, Portugal and the UK
Anne West, Thomas Czypionka, Monika Steffen, Stefanie Ettelt, Simone Ghislandi, Céu Mateus
Key words: Comparative health policy, comparative administration, data for policy making, data harmonization, COVID-19, comparable health data.

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What’s Left? Political orientation, economic conditions, and incarceration in Greece under Syriza-led government
Leonidas K. Cheliotis and Sappho Xenakis
Key words: Government political orientation; economic downturn; imprisonment; immigration detention; Syriza

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University research engagement around climate knowledge: findings from a small empirical study
David Lewis
Key words: research-policy interface; knowledge brokers; policy engagement; public policy

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The sounds of development: Musical representations as (an)other source of development knowledge
David Lewis, Dennis Rodgers and Michael Woolcock
Key words: Music, protest, representation, development, knowledge

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How uneven is the playing field? Inequality of socio-economic opportunity in the UK, 2009-2017 (MSc Dissertation)
David Flatscher
Key words: Inequality of opportunity, income inequality, social disadvantage 

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Government and NHS reform since the 1980s: the role of the market vis à vis the state, and of political ideas about the ‘direction of travel’
Jane Lewis
Key words: English NHS, NHS reform, political ideas, ideas in policymaking

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Identity, belonging and economic outcomes in England and Wales (Postgraduate dissertation)
Ivelina Hristova
Key words: identity economics, sub-state national and ethnic diversity, progression at work

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Upper and lower bound estimates of inequality of opportunity: A cross-national comparison for Europe
Rafael Carranza
Key words: circumstances; equality of opportunity; equivalized household income; inequality; MLDindex; upper bound estimate.

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Recent trends in religiosity of majority and minority European populations
Ayse Guveli and Lucinda Platt
Key words: religion; religiosity; migrants; second generation; Europe; natives; prayer; attendance.

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Loaded lesbians: how far do negotiations in the private sphere transfer to the labour market? (Undergraduate dissertation)
Liz Searle
Key words: (re/un-doing) gender; domestic labour; sexuality pay-gap; lesbian; housework.

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2019

Neither dupes, not pipers: violent crime, public sentiment and the political origins of mass incarceration in the United States 
Leonidas K. Cheliotis
Key words: mass incarceration, violent crime, public sentiment, politics of criminal justice

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The lasting effects of natural disasters on property crime: evidence from the 2010 Chilean earthquake
Jorge García Hombrados
Key words: Natural disasters; crime; social capital.

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Stalling of mortality in the United Kingdom and Europe: an analytical review of the evidence
Michael Murphy, Marc Luy and Orsola Torrisi
Key words: Life expectancy; UK mortality trends; Europe mortality trends; Influenza; Austerity.

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Female genital cutting and education: theory and causal evidence from Senegal 
Jorge García Hombrados and Edgar Salgado
Key words: Female genital cutting, education, harmful traditions.

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Read the related blog post here.

 

Preterm births and educational disadvantage: heterogenous effects across families and schools 
Anna Baranowska-Rataj, Kieron Barclay, Joan Costa-Font, Mikko Myrskylä and Berkay Özcan
Key words: SEN, disability, social isolation, loneliness, life-course

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Growing up lonely? Exploring the social outcomes of three generations identified with special education needs or disabilities in childhood
Samantha Parsons and Lucinda Platt
Key words: SEN, disability, social isolation, loneliness, life-course

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Read the related blog post here.

 

Reducing Mommy Penalties with Daddy Quotas
Allison Dunatchik and Berkay Özcan
Key words: family policy, gender roles, parental leave, work, work-family issues

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Inter-ethnic relations of teenagers in England's schools: the role of school and neighbourhood ethnic composition
Simon Burgess and Lucinda Platt
Key words: ethnicity, attitudes, contact, children, school context

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Two Become One: Improving the Targeting of Conditional Cash Transfers With a Predictive Model of School Dropout
Cristian Crespo
Key words: conditional cash transfers, targeting, school dropout prediction, machine learning, proxy means tests

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Cash for Grades or Money for Nothing? Evidence from Regression Discontinuity Designs
Cristian Crespo
Key words: cash for grades, regression discontinuity, bono por logro escolar, cash transfers

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Social Policy with Tunnel Vision: The problems of state efforts to curb adolescent pregnancy in Post 1988 Brazil
Beatriz Burattini- MSc Dissertation
Key words: adolescent pregnancy, sexual citizenship, legibility, health indicators, medicalisation

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Social entrepreneurship before neoliberalism? The life and work of Akhtar Hameed Khan 
David Lewis
Keywords: social entrepreneurship; non-governmental organisations (NGOs); community development; public administration; rural development; life history

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A different perspective on the evolution of UK income inequality
A.B. Atkinson and Stephen P. Jenkins
Key words: inequality, tax unit, household, Gini coefficient, income tax data, household survey data, HBA1, SPI

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2018

Perspectives on poverty in Europe 
Stephen P. Jenkins
Key words: poverty, material deprivation, Europe, EU-SILC

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What are the factors that lead to the disengagement in activism over an individual's lifetime in the Global South? 
Daniel Silver
Key words: Activism, social movements, sustainability, civil society

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NGOs and the success paradox: Gay activism 'after' HIV/AIDS in China 
Timothy Hildebrandt
Keywords: NGOs, LGBT, HIV/AIDS, China, development, aid

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