Links to all recordings of the Jobs Flagship Seminar Series
Jobs Flagship Seminar with Oriana Bandiera and Ahmed Elsayed, on G²LM|LIC – Jobs of the World Project (February 2023)
In this seminar, Oriana Bandiera (London School of Economics) and Ahmed Elsayed (American University in Cairo) presented the Jobs of the World project – a publicly available resource built to enable researchers to analyze comparable labor market outcomes across countries and time – and across wealth classes – using micro data. The project covers data from countries representing about 81% of the world’s population, and more than 90% of the population in low- and middle-income countries. The World Bank’s Jobs Flagship team also discussed potential linkages between the project and various chapters in the report.
Jobs Flagship Seminar Series with Richard Rogerson and Federico Huneeus – Heterogenous Paths of Industrialization (January 2023)
In this seminar, the presenters discuss the theoretical literature on the causes of structural transformation, and present findings and conclusions from a recent working paper ‘ Heterogenous Paths of Industrialization.’ The authors note that industrialization experiences differ substantially across countries. They use a benchmark model of structural change to shed light on the sources of this heterogeneity, and in particular, the phenomenon of “premature industrialization.”
Jobs Flagship Seminar Series with Harry Patrinos: Comparable estimates of Returns to Education for the World (October 2022)
Returns to education are used as important indicators to inform individual choices on schooling and employment prospects as well as to guide public policy. High returns to education provide the incentive for people to invest in education and raise their incomes, and for society to reduce inequality. In this Jobs Flagship Seminar, Harry Patrinos presented the findings and conclusions from his recent work using new and comparable estimates of the private returns to schooling based on a total of 853 harmonized household surveys in 142 economies.
Do some workers move up the tiers over time into better jobs? Who are they? Faced with labor market heterogeneity, what should policymakers focus on to nurture better jobs for more people with growth and structural transformation? Drawing on research and analysis, this seminar introduced the concept of a jobs ladder for developing countries based on the employment type, formality, and entry requirements to jobs. Further, the seminar explored evidence of worker transitions between the tiers of the ladder using panel labor force survey data.
Jobs Flagship Seminar with Gary Fields (June 2022)
Generating better jobs in developing countries depends, crucially, on increasing the demand for labor. But too often, the creation of better private sector jobs lags behind the growth of the labor force. As a result, millions of workers find themselves trapped in poor quality, own-account jobs in agriculture or in informal commerce. In this seminar, Cornell University’s Gary Fields discussed how economic theory can help identify effective policies to accelerate the growth of better-quality jobs.
