The Bologna process inspired the Italian 3+2 reform of the university system whichconstitutes a big increase in the supply of college graduates. This paper is a preliminaryattempt to identify the effects of the reform on (i) the relative probability (relative to nongraduates)of employment of...

What are the performance benefits of investing in human resources in a low-cost laborenvironment where returns to such investment are widely perceived as negligible? This paperpresents a matched pair case study on the performance effect of human resourcemanagement systems at two garment...

Are ethnic specialization and thus a downward sloping labor demand curve fundamentalfeatures of labor market competition between ethnic groups? In a general equilibrium model,this paper argues that spillover effects in skill acquisition and social distances between ethnicgroups engender...

We present a general model of child labor that incorporates the various componentspresented in the literature as explanations for its existence. Our proposal is to mitigate thephenomenon by encouraging temporary emigration...

Do the short and medium term adjustment costs associated with trade liberalization influenceschooling and child labor decisions? We examine this question in the context of India's 1991tariff reforms. Overall, in the 1990s, rural India experienced a dramatic increase in schoolingand decline in...

Skill-biased technical change has occupied empirical economists for much of the 90s. However, the empirical literature has not progressed much beyond observing a positive correlation between technology indicators and demand shifts. Two hypotheses on the root causes of skill biases in technical...

The paper sheds light on the impact of spatial agglomeration of humancapital on individual wages in Western Germany. Using panel data itshows that regional wage differentials are to a large extent attributableto localized human capital externalities arising from the regional share ofhighly...

This paper examines the relationship between the brain drain and country size, as well as the extent of small states overall loss of human capital. We find that small states are the main losers because they i) lose a larger proportion of their skilled labor force and ii) exhibit stronger...