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From individual level data for an entire cohort of undergraduate students in the`old' universities in the UK, we use a binomial probit model to estimate the probability that an individual will`drop out' of university before the completion of their degree course. We examine the cohort of students enrolling full time for a 3-or 4-year degree in the academic year 1989±1990. We ®nd evidence to support both the hypothesis that the completion of courses by students is in¯uenced by the extent of prior academic preparedness and the hypothesis that social integration at university is important. We also ®nd an in¯uence of unemployment in the county of prior residence, especially for poorer male students. Finally, we draw conclusions regarding the public policy of constructing university performance indicators in this area.

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We show that the patterns of intergenerational earnings mobility in Denmark, Finland and Norway, unlike those for the US and the UK, are highly nonlinear. The Nordic relationship between log earnings of sons and fathers is flat in the lower segments of the fathersÕ earnings distribution -sons growing up in the poorest households have the same adult earnings prospects as sons in moderately poor households -and is increasingly positive in middle and upper segments. This convex pattern contrasts sharply with our findings for the US and the UK, where the relationship is much closer to being linear. As a result, cross-country comparisons of intergenerational earnings elasticities may be misleading with respect to transmission mechanisms in the central parts of the earnings distribution and uninformative in the tails of the distribution.

The UK government is introducing new sets of indicators designed to measure the performance of universities. A ®rst wave of indicators was published in December 1999. A performance indicator based on graduate employment outcomes will follow. This paper proposes a method for developing employment-related performance indicators based on the analysis of data on the ®rst destinations of a full cohort of leavers from pre-1992 universities in the United Kingdom. We analyse the determinants of graduate ®rst destinations and suggest a method for the construction of university performance indicators. We also discuss limitations of league tables based on university performance indicators.

We characterise a full set of possible international trade regimes for different combinations of wages in a two-country model of oligopoly with a homogeneous product. We show that the nature of any equilibrium trade will be either inter-industry (one-way) or intra-industry (twoway) depending on (endogenous) union choices between high and low-wage strategies. We show that intra-industry trade is the more likely the lower are trade costs, and that under intraindustry trade, falling trade costs lead monopoly unions to set higher wages, but the opposite obtains under inter-industry trade.

Policies aimed at increasing the size of the medical student intake in the UK and of widening access to students from non-traditional backgrounds should be informed by evidence that student dropout probabilities are sensitive to measures of A-level attainment, such as subject studied and scores achieved. If traditional entry requirements or standards are relaxed, then this is likely to have detrimental effects on medical schools' retention rates unless accompanied by appropriate measures such as focussed student support.