We hypothesize, and test for, a negative effect of the length of the commute on worker’s productivity, by examining whether the commute has a positive effect on worker’s absenteeism. Our estimates for Germany indicate that commuting distance induces absenteeism with an elasticity of about...

We examine how multitasking affects performance and check whether women are indeed better at multitasking. Subjects in our experiment perform two different tasks according to three treatments: one where they perform the tasks sequentially, one where they are forced to multitask, and one where...

Nobel laureates in economics make their most important and creative contributionsbetween the ages of 29 and 38. The average creative age of Nobel economists is slightly belowthat of laureates in physics, and considerably younger than that of laureates in chemistry andmedicine/physiology. The...

The demand for skilled trade persons in Canada is very strong and new apprenticeship registrations increased by threefold between 1991 and 2007. The number of apprenticeship completions however, did not increase and as a result average completion rates have dropped over the same period. A CLSRN...

The last decade has seen an increasing volume of research that reveals significant gaps in literacy and Essential Skills (LES) among the Canadian workforce. In addition to having negative impacts on firms’ productivity, research also suggests that workers suffer consequences of low...

This paper examines how productivity effects of human capital and innovation vary at different points of the conditional productivity distribution. Our analysis draws upon two large unbalanced panels of 6,634 enterprises in Germany and 14,586 enterprises in the Netherlands over the period...

This paper seeks to identify relationships between human capital and cultural capital, in the context of local labour market productivity. The key constituents of human capital, identified in the literature, are jointly examined in a close-to-reality-model. The main advantage of our model of...