Although the Latin American region has shown an impressive growth in educational attainment over the past two decades, that education has failed to yield expected benefits. A mounting body of research and policy debates argues that the quantity of education is not an adequate metric of human...

Realizing the objectives of the Paris Agreement on climate change will necessitate a timely transition of the global energy system out of coal, but evidence from Europe, China, and the United States shows that the coal transition can lead to massive job losses. This paper develops a...

Vietnam's 50 million jobs are a cornerstone of its economic success. The transformation toward services and manufacturing, and impressive labor productivity and wage growth led to plunging poverty rates and globally enviable economic growth over the last decades. Employment rates are high and...

The World Bank has produced this policy Toolkit in response to a growing demand from our government clients and partners for advice on how to create and implement effective policies for at-risk youth. The author has highlighted 22 policies (six core policies, nine promising policies, and seven...

Educators believe that they are adequately preparing youth for the labor market while at the same time employers lament the students’ lack of skills. A possible source of the mismatch in perceptions is that employers and educators have different understandings of the types of skills valued in...

Evidence from developed country data suggests that cognitive and non-cognitive skills contribute to improved labor market outcomes. This paper tests this hypothesis in a developing country by using an individual-level data set from Peru that incorporates modules to measure cognitive and...

Social programs are often designed under the assumption that individuals make rational decisions that improve their welfare. Yet, informational and behavioral constraints limit the extreme and chronic poor's access and participation in social programs. This paper reviews the implementation and...

Although there is a general agreement in the literature of the importance of social-emotional skills for labor market success, there is little consensus on the specific skills that should be acquired or how and when to teach them. The psychology, economics, policy research, and program...

Educators believe that they are adequately preparing youth for the labor market while employers lament the lack of skills. A possible source of the mismatch in perceptions is that employers and educators have different understandings of the types of skills valued in the labor market. This paper...

The authors provide an overview of minimum wage levels in Latin America and their true impact on the distribution of wages, using both numerical measures and kernal density plots for eight countries (Argentina, Bolivia, Brazil, Chile, Colombia, Honduras, Mexico, and Uruguay). They especially try...