Vitali, Anna;
(2023)
Essays on Firms and Labor Markets in Developing Countries.
Doctoral thesis (Ph.D), UCL (University College London).
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Abstract
This thesis consists of three chapters on firms and labor markets in developing countries. The first chapter employs a labor market experiment to compare the effects of a demand-side and a supply-side policy aimed at addressing youth unemployment: vocational training and firm-provided training. The findings demonstrate that vocational training is a more cost-effective strategy to assist young job seekers transition into the labor market. This is because vocationally trained workers, whose skills are certified and can be demonstrated to potential employers, receive significantly higher rates of job offers when unemployed. The second chapter investigates how youth search for jobs in a developing country context and identifies the key factors influencing their ability to secure good jobs. To accomplish this, it relies on a field experiment that combines two standard labor market interventions: vocational training, vocational training combined with matching youth to firms, and matching only. The analysis highlights the foundational but separate roles of skills and expectations in job search, how interventions cause youth to become optimistic or discouraged, and how this matters for long run sorting and individual labor market outcomes. The third chapter examines how imperfect consumer information about available goods in the market influences firms' location choices within a city. By combining a novel data collection with a quantitative equilibrium model of consumer search and firm location, the study reveals that information frictions lead to substantial firm agglomeration within cities and hinder high-quality firms' ability to attract customers, enabling lower-quality competitors to survive. Through counterfactual scenarios, this chapter demonstrates the importance of considering consumer information frictions for an accurate assessment of the welfare implications of urban policies.
| Type: | Thesis (Doctoral) |
|---|---|
| Qualification: | Ph.D |
| Title: | Essays on Firms and Labor Markets in Developing Countries |
| Open access status: | An open access version is available from UCL Discovery |
| Language: | English |
| Additional information: | Copyright © The Author 2023. Original content in this thesis is licensed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial 4.0 International (CC BY-NC 4.0) Licence (https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc/4.0/). Any third-party copyright material present remains the property of its respective owner(s) and is licensed under its existing terms. Access may initially be restricted at the author’s request. |
| UCL classification: | UCL UCL > Provost and Vice Provost Offices > UCL SLASH UCL > Provost and Vice Provost Offices > UCL SLASH > Faculty of S&HS UCL > Provost and Vice Provost Offices > UCL SLASH > Faculty of S&HS > Dept of Economics |
| URI: | https://discovery.ucl.ac.uk/id/eprint/10173358 |
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