Following the adoption of information and communication technologies (ICT), firms may react to increasing skill requirements either by training or hiring the new skills, or a combination of the two.Using matched datasets with about 1,000 French plants, we assess the relative importance of these...

We analyse the role of training in mitigating the negative impact of technical and organizational changes on the employment prospects of older workers. Using a panel of French firms in the late 1990s, we first estimate wage bill share equations for different age groups. Consistently with what is...

This article sets out to investigate the reasons why some household businesses decide to register and become formal (while others do not) in order to shed light on the origins of informality. We use qualitative as well as quantitative data on household businesses (HB) derived from first-hand...

The authors examine wages and working conditions in meat processing and confectionery in France. Working there may not require much skill, or command good wages and working conditions, but this article reveals a more complex, positive situation than expected, thanks to the "French model's"...

We model the links between skills and changes in work organization. As the proportion of skilled workers increases, the economy travels through a sequence of organizational equilibria. We show that as the relative supply of skills increases the organization of work becomes more decentralized....

The purpose of this paper is to study the effects of education on urban labour market participation and earnings in seven major West African cities. Our results show that although education does not always guard against unemployment, it does increase individual earnings in Abidjan, Bamako,...

Using comparable data from five West African capitals, we assess the rationale behind development policies targeting high rates of school enrollment through the prism of allocation of labor and earnings effects of skills across the formal and informal sectors, and not working. We find that...