Capital equipment - such as computers and industrial machinery - embodies skill-biased technology, in the sense that it is complementary to skilled labor. Most countries import a large share of their capital equipment, and by doing so import skill-biased technology. In this paper we develop a...

Career technical education (CTE) programs at community colleges are increasingly seen as an attractive alternative to four-year colleges, yet little systematic evidence exists on the returns to specific certificates and degrees. We estimate returns to CTE programs using administrative data from...

Income disparity across countries has been large and widening over time. We develop a tractable model where factor requirements in production technology do not necessarily match a country's factor input profile. Appropriate assimilation of frontier technologies balances such multi-dimensional...

Why do living standards differ so much across countries? A consensus in the development literature is that differences in productivity are a dominant source of these differences. But what accounts for productivity differences across countries? One explanation is that frontier technologies and...

Many technologies used by the LDCs are developed in the OECD economies, and as such are designed to make optimal use of the skills of these richer countries' workforces. Due to differences in the supply of skills, some of the tasks performed by skilled workers in the OECD economies will be...

This paper uses three models of a small open economy to analyze the effects of terms of trade and exchange rate changes (i.e. devaluations) on labor market adjustment. First, a three goods (exportables, importables, non-tradables), four factors model is developed and used to investigate how an...

constrains the move to the new sector. Thus, turbulent periods provide opportunities for structural shifts in favor of the new sector. The analysis assesses both the positive aspects of policies and the welfare costs associated with departures from fully flexible labor markets. It also discusses...

The economies of the less developed countries are about to face perhaps the greatest challenge in their histories: generating a sufficient number of jobs at reasonable wages to absorb their rapidly growing populations into productive employment. In terms of absolute magnitude, this challenge has...

This essay reviews what economists have learned about the impact of labor market institutions, defined broadly as government regulations and union activity on labor outcomes in developing countries. It finds that: 1) Labor institutions vary greatly among developing countries but less than they...

This paper argues that labor market distortions in transition and developing economies help explain differential impacts of trade liberalization. We assume that workers differ in ability. In a market economy their earnings depend on their ability. However, earnings are independent of ability due...