The labour market situation of low-educated people is particularly critical in most advanced economies, especially among youngsters and women. Policies aiming to increase their employability either try to foster their productivity and/or to decrease their wage cost. Yet, the evidence on the...

We use 29 OECD countries data spanning over 1960-2000 to study the growth strategy when countries are close to the technology frontier. Relying on a semi-parametric generalized additive model, we estimate labor productivity equations. We find that the number of agents enrolled in higher...

This paper uses firm level panel data of firm provided training to estimate its impact on productivity and wages. To this end the strategy proposed by Ackerberg, Caves and Frazer (2006) for estimating production functions to control for the endogeneity of input factors and training is applied....

We suggest a family bargaining model where human capital investment decisions are made non-cooperatively in a first stage, while day-to-day allocation of time is determined later through Nash bargaining, but with non-cooperative behaviour as the fall back. Several authors have claimed that...

This paper studies a model of human capital accumulation with real wage rigidity. It is shown that the arbitrage condition between hiring a skilled versus an unskilled worker may be stated as a positive relationship between their relative unemployment rates. It may be the case that this locus is...

The paper examines the extent of apprenticeships in the first job for a cohort of young men entering the labour market at age 16 in the late 1970s. The impact of the apprenticeship on employment duration and early labour market mobility is estimated. The data set used is the National Child...

This paper exploits an unusual policy reform that had the effect of reducing the direct cost of schooling in Ireland in the late 1960’s. This gave rise to an increased level of schooling but with effects that vary substantially across family background. This interaction of educational reform...

Using longitudinal data from the British National Child Development Study, this paper examines gender differences in the determinants of work-related training. The analysis covers a crucial decade in the working lives of the 1958 birth cohort of young men and women – the years spanning the...

This paper examines the rate of return to education in Sudan. One advantage and interesting element in our analysis in this paper is that we explain three stylised facts on the rate of return to education using new primary data in Sudan: first, positive but low rate of return to education and...