We produce estimates of the pecuniary costs of inadequate investment in human capital for countries, macro regions and the world at large. These costs are borne by individuals (private costs), the government (fiscal costs), and society, which includes both individuals and the government (social...

We model individual careers in sports and games from initial entry to eventual exit or success as a discrete-choice, finite-horizon optimization problem. We apply this model to the international game of chess and study cross-country differences in the relative success of players. While we find...

The existing empirical evidence on the relationship between apprenticeships, initial workplace training and economic downturns, is relatively scarce. The bottom line of this literature is that ratio of apprentices to employees tends to be (mildly) pro-cyclical and to decline during a recession,...

This paper studies how schooling admission tests affect economic performance in an economy where individuals are endowed with both academic and non academic abilities and both abilities matter for labor productivity. We develop a simple model with selective government held schools, where...

We develop a simple search equilibrium model of workplace training and education based on two features. First, investment in education improves job-related learning skills and reduces training costs burdened by firms. Second, firms with vacant skilled job slots can choose between recruitment...

The reduction of early school leaving to less than 10 percent of the relevant population by 2020 is a headline target in the Europe 2020 strategy and one of the five benchmarks of the strategic framework for European cooperation in education and training. Designing adequate policies to combat...

We ask whether local agglomeration affects how recessions impact on entrepreneurship by comparing the probability of being an entrepreneur before and after the Great 2008 Recession in local labour markets where industrial districts are present and in comparable areas. Using Italian Labour Force...

I use the European Community Household Panel to ask whether unemployment affects the relationship between education and subsequent earnings growth. show that individuals with more education have more to lose in terms of subsequent earnings growth from the experience of unemployment. This result...

This paper investigates the relationship between education and training provided by the firm, both on the job and off the job, using a unique dataset based on a survey of Thai employees conducted in the summer of 2001. We find a significant and negative relationship between educational...