Our paper on training is now forthcoming in Econometrica.
Compares returns to vocational vs on-the-job training over 4 yrs, combining RCT+structural model.
Potential implications for COVID-recovery in LICs.
Video summary:
Paper:
Excited my have my JMP featured on this blog!
❓Why do firms selling similar products cluster together within cities?
👉I combine new data from Uganda & a structural model to study how firms' location choices are driven by the search behavior of imperfectly informed consumers
Why do so many small firms in developing countries selling the same product locate next to one another? The first in our job market series this year has
@anni_vitali
explaining agglomeration and the role of information frictions
📆 22 Nov. @ 15:00 BST
In the next CEPR VIOS Seminar Series session,
@anni_vitali
@DartmouthEcon
will present the paper "Consumer Search & Firm Location: Theory & Evidence from the Garment Sector in Uganda".
Discussant: Matthijs Wildenbeest
@uarizona
✍️
In Uganda, schools are reopening today after being closed for almost 2 years. Like in many other low-income countries, consequences are devastating and go way beyond learning loss
Uganda's National Planning Authority estimated that 30% of all the country's learners wouldn’t go back to school today due to teenage pregnancies, early marriages, and child labour.
There’s nothing like home-made seminar series with friends. Best combination of friendly advice and exchange of ideas.
Anger is only allowed in the post-seminar boxing session
#bloomingdev
@SylvanRH
@JohnSpray0
@lpreonas
@economeager
I also got it, but am pretty sure it was the British way of telling people to stop calling NHS to know when they can get the vaccine... love it!
🚩 It's job market season and we're delighted to share with you our PhD candidates for this year!
We'll be highlighting each of our 2021 job market candidates separately but in the meantime you can see all of our candidates on our website:
How do small firms in low income countries manage to adopt technology? Even if each firm is too small to buy large machines, a thick rental market allows them to achieve scale collectively and mechanize production
@PorzioTommaso
@bassi_vittorio
@RitwikaSen
What have we learnt?
1️⃣ The potential for labor market entrants to be exuberant or discouraged both matter for long run outcomes through search behavior
2️⃣ Because job assistance impacts beliefs and search strategies, it can have persistent effects on employment
16/
However, relative to those only offered vocational training, those also offered job assistance do worse 📚➕🧑🔧
👉 they are less likely, and work less time in regular jobs
👉 end up at worse quality firms
👉 have lower earnings
👉 experience longer unemployment spells
14/
❓What happens to workers’ beliefs and job search?
👫 offered vocational training (without job assistance) become more optimistic, search more intensively, and direct their search towards higher quality firms relative to Controls
9/
In low-income countries, large cohorts of young people transition into the labor market each year.
They are subject to:
1️⃣skills mismatch
2️⃣credit constraints
3️⃣information frictions
‼️hard for them to secure regular employment in “good jobs”
2/
🙋 Do these changes in search behavior caused by active labor market policies have persistent effects?
❕we answer this question by looking at participants’ labor market outcomes 5 years after the interventions
❕and the answer is YES
12/
❓What are workers’ expectations from the intervention?
✏️ At baseline youth are overly optimistic about job offer arrival rate (see 👇)
✏️ Over time, the beliefs of untrained workers converge towards the truth, while vocationally trained youth become even more optimistic
5/
The perfect excuse to share more pictures!
#EconPhotographyTwitter
(thanks
@KhoaVuUmn
)
Here some of my favorite photos, mostly in Uganda and Bolivia, and some stories related to them.
The first one, Fishermen on Ssese Islands in Uganda /1.
For policy makers ➡️ implications for the design and targeting of job assistance:
🔴 trying to debias skilled 👫 even through light touch interventions can backfire and lead to discouragement
🟢 unskilled 👫 might instead be able to access credit to finance self-employment
17/
❓What exactly is job assistance in our experiment?
Workers’ details are passed on to high-wage firms offering regular employment in one of the training sectors, who can decide whether or not to invite the worker for an interview
4/
Relative to controls, this offered vocational training 📚
👉 are more likely to be employed
👉 to transition from casual into regular work
👉 to be employed in good sectors
👉 and end up in better jobs and better firms
13/
Can active labor market policies relax these constraints and change young workers’ employment trajectories?
We look at 3 types of interventions:
📚 Vocational Training
📚➕🧑🔧 Vocational Training combined with job assistance
🧑🔧 Job Assistance only
3/
But ✔️ labor market entrants are not well informed and ✔️ given that there is no market substitute for it, and that it is implemented by a reputable NGO (
@BRACworld
), the job assistance intervention is very salient for workers
8/
‼️Lack of call-backs is driven by lack of vacancies and not by worker characteristics
➡️ fully informed workers should not update their beliefs in response to the intervention
7/
This leads to very different shocks from the job assistance intervention for trained and untrained workers:
🔴 Among vocational trainees: actual call-back rate=16% vs. prior=30%
🟢 Among untrained: actual call-back rate=18% vs. prior=20%
6/
Relative to 👫 only offered vocational training, workers also offered job assistance:
🔴 revise down their beliefs over job offer arrival rate and distribution of expected earnings
🔴 search less intensively
🔴 search over lower quality firms
10/
@ImranRasul3
I feel extremely lucky to have had the chance of working with you and the team on this project. Each step in this process has taught me how hard and how rewarding research is. Thank you!
👫 only offered job assistance - relative to controls - react to the confirmation of their poor job prospects by borrowing small amounts of 💵, with the stated purpose of using it to set-up in self-employment
11/