This paper examines the relationship between individuals? skills and labor market outcomes for the working-age population of Colombia?s urban areas. Using a 2012 unique household survey, the paper finds that cognitive skills (aptitudes to perform mental tasks such as comprehension or reasoning)...

This study examines the effects of the extension of compulsory schooling from 5 to 8 years in Turkey in 1997?which involved substantial investment in school infrastructure?on schooling outcomes and, in particular, on the equality of these outcomes between men and women, and urban and rural...

Labour shortages have become prevalent across advanced economies. Yet, little is known about which firms are more likely to face them and the impact they have on the labour market. We create a firm-level data set spanning 28 EU countries, 283 regions and 18 sectors, contributing to close this...

Agglomeration boosts economic growth. A vast literature has empirically assessed the effects of agglomeration by estimating the city population elasticity on wages. This conventional approach is not necessarily suitable for analyzing urbanization at the early stage in developing countries, where...

A variety of approaches to delineate metropolitan areas have been developed. Systematic comparisons of these approaches in terms of the urban landscape that they generate are however few. This paper aims to fill this gap. The paper focuses on Indonesia and makes use of the availability of data...

In this paper the impact of various agglomerative forces on employment growth in Ghanaian manufacturing is investigated, using data from two firm censuses, as well as population census and trade data. The study is the first to use nationally representative firm data that covers the formal and...

Over the last century, the urban spatial structure of cities has transformed dramatically from the traditional monocentric configuration to varying forms of decentralized organization. This paper reviews the theory and empirical evidence to understand the urban morphology of jobs and land use...

An audit study was conducted in peri-urban Mexico to understand the quality of information and products offered to low-income potential customers. Trained auditors visited multiple financial institutions seeking credit and savings products. Consistent with Gabaix and Laibson (2006), staff...

The future development of the Tajik economy will be shaped by its comparative advantage on world markets. Exploiting comparative advantage enables an economy to reap gains from trade. Tajikistan's most important comparative advantage is its hydropower potential, which is far larger than the...