Intra-Firm Human Capital Externalities in Tunisia

In this case-study, we use matched worker-firm Tunisian data to elicit the roles of intra-firm human capital and modern firm features in worker remunerations. We show that the estimated return to education in wage equations is not modified when replacing in the list of regressors the firm dummies, representing observed and unobserved firm heterogeneity, by the first three factors of a Principal Component Analysis of the observed firm characteristics. These factors can be interpreted as: the activity sector, the intra-firm human capital density and the modernity of the firm. These results constitute an interesting argument in favour of the presence of intra-firm human capital externalities. Moreover, the estimated education coefficient does not change when the three factors are replaced by three surrogate variables, respectively: the textile industry dummy, the intra-firm mean education, and the firm’s age.economic development, rate of returns, human capital, wage differentials, intra-firm knowledge externalities, Tunisia.

On-the-job learning and earnings: Comparative evidence from Morocco and Senegal.

In this paper, we consider a model of on-the-job learning where workers learn informally by watching and imitating colleagues. We estimate the rate of knowledge diffusion inside the firm using two matched worker-firm data sets from Morocco and Senegal. We rely on non-linear least squares to estimate the structural parameters of the informal learning model and account for firm heterogeneity using firm factors derived from a principal component analysis. We find that the rate of knowledge diffusion is around 7 percent in Morocco and Senegal, but part of the learning-by-watching returns stems from firm heterogeneity. Informal training significantly affects the shape of returns to tenure in these two countries. Finally, we estimate an extended model with both learning-by-watching and learning-by-doing and find significant benefits from imitating colleagues in Morocco.Senegal; Morocco; returns to tenure; learning-by-doing; learning-by-watching; informal training; Earnings functions;

Gender differences in pay in African manufacturing firms

Using matched employer-employee data collected in seven African countries, we present comparative evidence on the magnitude of the gender wage gap in African manufacturing sectors. Using OLS regressions, differences in male and female earnings are found both in Mauritius and Morocco, while the gender wage gap turns out to be insignificant in Benin, Kenya, Madagascar, Senegal and Uganda. Results from quantile regressions indicate that the wage gap remains not constant across the wage distribution. Finally, we study the role of firm characteristics and job segregation across firms as potential factors explaining the gender wage gaps.

Task Organization, Human Capital and Wages in Moroccan Exporting Firms

We conduct a case study of the linkages of task organization, human capital accumulation and wages in Morocco, using matched worker-firm data for Electrical-mechanical and Textile-clothing industries. In order to integrate task organization into the interacting processes of workers' training and remunerations, we assume a recursive model, which is not rejected by our estimates: task organization influences on-the-job training that affects wages. Beyond sector and gender determinants, assignment of workers to tasks and on-the-job training is found to depend on former education and work experience in a broad sense. Meanwhile, participation in on-the-job training is stimulated by being assigned to a team, especially of textile sector and for well-educated workers. Finally, task organization and on-the-job training are found to affect wages

Inputs, gender roles or sharing norms ? Assessing the gender performance gap among informal entrepreneurs in Madagascar

Nous utilisons un échantillon représentatif d’entrepreneurs informels à Antananarivo, Madagascar, pour mesurer et expliquer l'existence d'un écart de performance entre les unités de production informelles dirigées par des hommes et celles dirigées par des femmes. Une fois pris en compte les niveaux des facteurs de production, de capital humain, le secteur d'activité, l'année et la sélection endogène dans l'entreprenariat, l'écart de valeur ajoutée entre les entreprises féminines et masculines est d’environ 33%, au détriment des femmes. Nous étudions ensuite l’impact différencié des normes de partages au sein de la communauté et de la répartition des tâches au sein du ménage sur la capacité des hommes et des femmes entrepreneurs à atteindre leur frontière de production. Notre analyse suggère que seuls les entrepreneurs masculins sont sujets à la pression à la redistribution de la part du réseau distant. Pour les femmes, opérer une activité à domicile n’est pas un handicap en soi, mais cela agit plutôt comme un vecteur de transmission des effets négatifs des normes sociales et de répartition des tâches sur la gestion de l’entreprise. Nos résultats sont compatibles avec des situations dans lesquelles les femmes entrepreneures opérant une activité à domicile ressentiraient davantage le poids de leur propre communauté, sans doute à cause de normes de solidarité contraignantes, mais aussi à cause de leurs responsabilités domestiques

Who Suffers the Penalty? A Panel Data Analysis of Earnings Gaps in Vietnam

In spite of its predominant economic weight in developing countries, little is known about informal sector income dynamics vis-à-vis the formal sector. Some works have been done in this field using household surveys, but they only consider some emerging Latin American countries and a few African countries. As a matter of consequence, there is still no way to generalize the (diverging) results to other part of the developing world. Taking advantage of the rich VHLSS dataset in Vietnam, in particular its three waves panel data (2002, 2004, 2006), we assess the magnitude of various formal/informal earnings gaps while addressing heterogeneity issues at three different levels: the worker, the job (wage employment vs. selfemployment) and the earnings distribution.We estimate fixed effects and quantile regressions to control for unobserved individual characteristics. Our results suggest that the informal sector earnings gap highly depends on the workers' job status and on their relative position in the earnings distribution. Penalties may in some cases turn into premiums. By comparing our results with studies in other developing countries, we draw conclusions highlighting the Vietnam's labour market specificity. --informal employment,earnings gap,transition matrix,quantile regressions,panel data,Vietnam

Vocational education, on-the-job training and labour market integration of young workers in urban West Africa

Background paper prepared for the Education for All Global Monitoring Report 2012 “Youth and skills: Putting education to work”Using surveys covering seven West African economic capitals in the early 2000s, this paper describes the labour market integration of youth with regard to their level of formal education and to the type of vocational training they received. We particularly focus on the informal sector and look at activity rates, unemployment, earnings, job quality and small firm performance in order to identify the key features of youth labour market integration. To our knowledge, these features of Africa’s labour markets are rarely documented at a sectoral level using representative samples of urban areas. The overall results suggest that the youth are the most disadvantaged in terms of unemployment, access to the formal sector, and earnings. We provide some evidence that vocational education might be a good instrument for integrating the formal sector and that it is often more profitable than general education in terms of earnings and firm performance, especially at higher levels of schooling. Generally, education, especially at high levels, provides a substantial growth in earnings in informal jobs in most of the cities studied. Regarding the incidence of vocational education and training (VET), the main form observed is traditional apprenticeship. Overall, young workers without any formal VET are the more disadvantaged in terms of working conditions, while workers who benefited from a traditional apprenticeship in a small firm occupy an intermediate position. Apprenticeship training for young workers seems to be fairly prevalent in the informal sector, but the associated working conditions are bad, and kinship ties seem to be there a crucial channel for training access

Gender differences in pay in African manufacturing firms

This chapter from the book “Gender Disparities in Africa’s Labour Market (2010)” adds new evidence regarding the magnitude of the gender wage gap in African manufacturing sectors. It suggests that African manufacturing firms rarely attempt to narrow gender wage inequalities. Comparative analyses of seven African countries are presented, using the Investment Climate Assessment (ICA) surveys. The study follows the framework of the World Bank’s Africa Regional Program on Enterprise Development (RPED). Having matched data from manufacturing firms in African countries allows the study to control for observed and unobserved heterogeneity at the firm level by estimating fixed effect wage models

Does Forced Solidarity Hamper Entrepreneurial Activity? Evidence from seven West-African Countries.

kinship; forced solidarity; social networks; informal sector; firm growth; West Africa;