Ken Mayhew, Director of SKOPE. Ken’s first job after graduate school was in Her Majesty’s Treasury where he worked primarily as an economic forecaster. On moving into academia he turned to labour economics and has published extensively in this field and in policy analysis more generally. For the last 20 years he has concentrated particularly on education, skills and economic performance. Most recently he has been one of the two UK national leaders in a multi-country project, funded by the Russell Sage Foundation, on the future of low wage work. He has also been particularly concerned with skills and the labour market fortunes of older workers and with the role of the higher education sector.

He has a long and extensive experience of working with policy makers. In 1989-91 he took leave of absence from Oxford to be Economic Director of the National Economic Development Office. In 1983 he spent 8 months working for the CBI. He is closely involved with other groups working on policy aspects of skill formation and usage. In the UK, for example, he is on the international advisory committee of COMPAS, the external management committee of the Oxford Institute of Ageing and the advisory committee of the Tomorrow Project. Abroad he was on the advisory committee for the REFLEX project and is currently chair of the expert committee for the job related questionnaire segment of PIAAC (the OECD’s successor to IALS). He has worked as a consultant or advisor for, inter alia, the Department of Health, the DfEE and DfES, the DTI, the Cabinet Office, the South West Regional Development Agency, Futureskills Scotland, National Economic Research Associates, the Polish, Belgian, Dutch and Italian Governments, Group Training Australia, SFK (Sweden), the US Congress, the EU and the OECD.

Education and Qualifications:

1968-70 London School of Economics - M.Sc in Economics

1965-68 Worcester College, Oxford - BA (subsequently MA) in Modern History

Current Posts:

Director (since 1998) of ESRC Designated Research Centre on Skills, Knowledge and Organisational Performance.

Fellow in Economics at Pembroke College, Oxford (since 1976).

Professor of Education and Economic Policy, Oxford University.

Selected Employment History:

Previous positions include:

Economic Director, UK National Economic Development Office (1989-91, on leave of absence from my posts in Oxford)

Consultant to Director of Economics, Confederation of British Industry (1983, on sabbatical leave)

Visiting Associate Professor, New York State School of Industrial and Labor Relations, Cornell University (1981, on sabbatical leave)

Economic Assistant, H.M. Treasury (1970-2)

Recent Relevant Publications:

Low Wage Work in the UK, Russell Sage Foundation, 2008 (edited with C. Lloyd & G. Mason

“Improving the human capital of older workers”, Ageing Horizons, 2008 (with M. Elliott & B. Rijkers

“Productivity in the UK: getting inside the black box”, Oxford Review of Economic Policy, Winter 2006 (with A. Neely)

“From skills revolution to productivity miracle”, Oxford Review of Economic Policy, Winter 2006 (with E. Keep)

“How to improve the human capital of older workers”, in OECD, Human Capital and Labour Market Performance, 2005 (with B.Rijkers)

Defining a Strategy for the Direct Assessment of Adult Skills, European Commission, Danish Technological Institute, 2005 (with F. Green, C. Stasz et al.)

“The economic and distributional implications of current policies on higher education”, Oxford Review of Economic Policy, Summer 2004 (with E. Keep)

Can Employers be Persuaded that Training Pays?, Futureskills Scotland, 2004 (with E. Keep)

Employer Perspectives on Skill, DfES, 2003 (with F. Green & E. Molloy)

Rates of Return to Employers of Investment in Training and Employer Training Measures, DTI, 2003 (with E. Keep)

The Economics of Skills Obsolescence: Theoretical Innovations and Empirical Applications, Elsevier, 2002 (edited with A. de Grip & J. van Loo)

Skills Measurement and Economic Analysis, special issue of Oxford Economic Papers, July 2001 (edited with L. Borghans & F. Green)

“Skills measurement and economic analysis”, Oxford Economic Papers, July 2001 (with L. Borghans & F. Green)

“The impact of training on labour mobility”, British Journal of Industrial Relations, June 2000 (with A. Felstead & F. Green)

Relevant Links

http://www.education.ox.ac.uk
http://www.education.ox.ac.uk/skope
http://www.skope.ox.ac.uk