Personal profile

Research interests

I am Professor of Economic and Social Policy at the Institute for Policy Research, where I lead the programme of research on widening participation in higher education. Recent projects have examined the earnings returns to undergraduate and post-graduate degrees, the role of further education in progression to higher education and the impact of early health on later educational and labour market outcomes. I also continue to research the returns to education more broadly having published a number of papers examining the causal effects of education on earnings, employment, health, and the education of the next generation.

I have been at the University of Bath since 2012, first as a Prize (Research) Fellow and then a lecturer before moving into the IPR as Reader in Public Policy in 2017. Prior to joining Bath I held positions at University College Dublin and the University of Bristol. I attained my PhD in Economics from the University of Warwick in 2009. 

My research primarily uses microeconometric techniques applied to large-scale survey and administrative datasets to address research questions related to the economics of education - particularly higher education. Currently my main research projects use the Dept. for Education's Longitudinal Education Outcomes (LEO) dataset - which links National Pupil Database, Higher Education Statistics Agency and HMRC data. In other recent or ongoing projects I have used the New Earnings Survey Panel Dataset, the Quarterly Labour Force Survey, UKHLS, BHPS, the ALSPAC cohort data and the UK BioBank. 

I am a Research Fellow at the IZA (Institute of Labor Economics). My full CV can be downloaded here: https://www.iza.org/wc/cvs/cv_Dickson.pdf

Other responsibilities

I am currently on the Editorial Board of the Journal of Education and Work and from 2018-2023 I served on the Editorial Board of the Journal of Social Policy. 

Willing to supervise doctoral students

I am interested in supervising PhD students from economics/advanced quantitative methods backgrounds who are investigating topics in the economics of education, in particular:

  • Widening participation in higher education
  • Returns to education
  • Social mobility

 

Expertise related to UN Sustainable Development Goals

In 2015, UN member states agreed to 17 global Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs) to end poverty, protect the planet and ensure prosperity for all. This person’s work contributes towards the following SDG(s):

  • SDG 3 - Good Health and Well-being
  • SDG 4 - Quality Education
  • SDG 8 - Decent Work and Economic Growth
  • SDG 10 - Reduced Inequalities
  • SDG 16 - Peace, Justice and Strong Institutions
  • SDG 17 - Partnerships for the Goals

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