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To date, few studies have analysed the geography of the circular economy, especially its contribution to economic activity on a sub-regional scale. In this context, our paper aims to analyse the evolution of employment and activities in the circular economy at the local level in France. For this purpose, we use a database on job creation and companies in the circular economy between 2008 and 2015 and we propose for the first time a study measuring the creation of jobs and companies in the CE. We show that the growth of employment in the circular economy is higher than the growth of total employment. Moreover, we highlight that the number of companies in the circular economy is mainly concentrated in metropolitan areas. We also point out the regional effect of the growth of the circular economy, indicating the territorial embeddedness of this type of activity. Based on this observation, we assume that regional public policies play a significant role in the deployment of a circular economy. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This study examines the impact of short selling on firm-level employment growth. Exploiting the staggered short-sale deregulation in China, we find that short selling has a significant negative effect on employment growth. We establish causality by applying a propensity score matching difference-in-differences (PSM-DiD) method and an instrumental variable (IV) approach. Exploring the underlying mechanisms, we find that financial constraints, information transparency, and agency costs are three plausible channels by which short selling affects employment growth. Furthermore, a series of cross-sectional tests suggest that the effect of short selling on employment growth is concentrated in non-state-owned enterprises (non-SOEs), firms with higher operating risk, firms with lower governance quality, firms in regions with weaker labor protection, and in periods prior to the Covid-19 pandemic. Overall, our study offers novel evidence on the consequences of short selling on employment growth in an emerging market, complementing the literature on short sales and labor market outcomes. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

ABSTRACTAcademic discussions have frequently examined the interrelation between regional employment growth and firm locations. Two growth patterns emerge: employment growth induced through new firm locations or vice versa, where firms locate in areas experiencing employment supply growth. The specific causal relationship responsible for regional employment growth in Germany remains uncertain. In the German context, however, more research is needed to identify contributors to employment growth, as most existing studies rely on highly aggregated data or focus on specific case studies. This paper aims to approach this subject by using a uniquely matched dataset of firm locations and the individual employment of 480 multi-locational firms in the knowledge economy and comparing it to total employment in Germany. We assume that a change in knowledge-intensive firms’ employment may affect regional employment growth. The study uses longitudinal historical employment data at the functional urban area (FUA) level from 1999 to 2019, aggregated to knowledge-intensive high-tech and advanced producer services (APS) sectors. The analysis employs aggregated and individual Granger causality tests, evaluating the relationship between employment in knowledge-intensive sectors and overall employment change. Results are spatialised using GIS to provide evidence of where the Granger causalities occur at the FUA level in Germany. Findings indicate that, in general, knowledge-intensive employment growth Granger causes total employment growth in a few economically more active FUAs. In contrast, for a greater number of FUAs, total employment Granger causes knowledge-intensive employment.

In China, there exists a huge debate for a long time on whether a double dividend, reducing pollution emissions and boosting employment, can be achieved by intensifying environmental regulations. In this paper, we use two data sets on provincial environmental legislation and Chinese manufacturing firms during 1998–2013, to estimate the impact of provincial environmental legislation on the firms' employment growth with a difference-in-difference (DID) model. Results showed that (1) after the implementation of environmental legislation, the employment growth of regulated manufacturing firms decreases significantly by 3.07%, and this result is robust to alternative tests. (2) Local environmental legislation reduces employment growth mainly via the influencing mechanism of the firm's entry and exit, export, and innovation. (3) The local environmental legislation has heterogeneous impacts on employment growth in different industries and different regions, and the estimated effect is more obvious in high-pollution industries and areas with strong enforcement. (4) Environmental legislation significantly improves job destruction and reduces job creation, resulting in a − 3.86% job net increase. Due to the long-term implementation of extensive economic growth mode, China's ecological environment has been deteriorating since the 1990s, and environmental pollution has attracted more and more social attention. Until 2013, the Communist Party of China put forward 'ecological civilization', and building a beautiful new China with harmonious coexistence between man and nature has become an important development strategy. Meanwhile, starting from the implementation of the Two-Control-Zone policy in 1998, China has implemented numerous environmental policies in just ten years. These environmental policies have greatly improved the quality of China's ecological environment, but their economic effects have been controversial. Given the special historical period, this paper helps assess the impact of Chinese environmental policies on employment and provides a more objective policy evaluation and implications for improving existing laws and regulations to achieve higher social welfare. To achieve this goal of balancing the improvement of the ecological environment and high employment level, environmental policies firstly should be flexible to ensure that the environmental standards follow the firm's characteristics and regional characteristics to avoid "one size fits all". Particularly, for regions with poor economic development or having a single industrial structure, the implementation cycle of the environmental policies should be extended to ensure that they have enough time to achieve industrial restructuring and complete the environmental protection goals. Secondly, we find that environmental legislation hurts employment growth by limiting export decisions, so the government should use multiple channels to stabilize export when implementing environmental legislation. Thirdly, technological R&D and innovation play an important role in the effect of environmental legislation on firms' employment growth. Therefore, the government should provide a more flexible environment for firms' R&D and innovation with appropriate fiscal policies and technical support. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

One of the main objectives of science and technology parks (STPs) is to contribute to regional development through the creation of skilled jobs in the territory where they are located. However, despite the expansion of these infrastructures over the last decades and the governmental support they receive, there is very little empirical evidence on how these infrastructures affect the employment growth of the firms located there. The aim of this paper is to examine whether the location in STPs has positive effects on employment growth at the firm level. We analysed a sample of 553 Portuguese firms located on STPs and a control group of the same size of comparable firms located outside STPs, applying a dynamic panel data model methodology. The empirical evidence does not allow to prove that location in STPs has positive effects on employment growth, which raises the need to rethink the policies supporting these parks. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

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This study uses village and household matching information from the 2018 China Labor-force Dynamic Survey to analyze the impact of rural e-commerce on farmers' revenue. The outcomes of the baseline regression and robustness discussions show that rural e-commerce greatly improved farmers' revenue. After solving endogeneity problems in the model using rural clan power as the instrumental variable, the influence of e-commerce on farmers' revenue is still significantly positive. Further analysis suggests that rural e-commerce directly affects farmers' revenue by promoting farmers' market integration, and indirectly affects it by expanding affiliated industries that can promote employment growth. Furthermore, in the case of a higher level of transportation infrastructure development, the impact of rural e-commerce-affiliated industries on farmers' revenue will be greater. However, not all farmers receive the same benefits from e-commerce. Farmers with more human capital receive more benefits from e-commerce. Our results have important policy implications for developing countries that hope to grow farmers' revenue and rural development through e-commerce. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Do creative industries have positive spillovers for the local economy in middle-income countries? While in high-income countries several studies have shown that creative industries are highly innovative and productive, positively impacting the local economy, the evidence is scarce for middle-income countries. Using employment data, we studied the agglomeration patterns of creative industries in Colombia between 2008 and 2017. We found a positive relationship between creative industries' agglomeration and employment in non-creative services industries. However, using a shift–share instrumental variable approach, we found no significant causality of an increase in creative industries' employment on employment growth in other industries. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This article investigates the impact of investment in environmentally sustainable practices on employment and labor productivity growth in transition economies. It explores the influence of labor skill composition and geographical variations on sustainability dynamics. Utilizing data from the World Bank's Enterprise Survey 2019 across 24 transition economies, an environmental sustainability index is constructed using Principal Components Analysis. To address endogeneity concerns, a combination of fixed effects and instrumental variables is employed. The findings highlight the significance of environmental sustainability for both employment and labor productivity growth. However, the observed relationships diminish in significance when comprehensively addressing endogeneity, suggesting a more nuanced and time‐dependent connection between environmentally sustainable practices and job growth. Notably, high‐skill firms experience a deceleration in job creation following sustainability investments, while low‐skill firms benefit from improved labor productivity. Geographically, Central Europe exhibits more pronounced impacts on labor productivity, potentially attributed to higher levels of development and sustainability awareness compared to Southeast Europe and the Commonwealth of Independent States. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Prior literature has documented that product quality failures have negative impacts on the interest of stakeholders, such as consumers and shareholders. We extend this literature by investigating its potential effects on the interest of employees. Using a novel dataset that tracks the recall incidents of Chinese firms in an industry where product quality is crucial (i.e., the drug industry), our empirical results show that the effects on corporate employment decisions are twofold. On the one hand, we show that firms' employment growth decreases after product recalls. The effect is more pronounced in non-state-owned firms, firms with higher labor costs, firms in regions with weaker labor protection, and during periods when local politicians lack promotion incentives. On the other hand, product recalls mainly induce firms to reduce the employment growth of low-grade employees, consistent with recalling firms relying on high-skilled labor to improve drug quality. Collectively, our study suggests that product quality failures could be a broader issue of corporate social responsibility (CSR) than being documented, and carries implications for policymakers concerning employment as well as product safety. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

In China, between 1995 and 2018, the proportion of workers employed in unskilled job categories grew, while the share holding middle‐skilled jobs declined. The resulting income polarization magnified a major redistribution of wages within job categories, which is not only the main component of total income inequality but is also the driving factor contributing to changes in total income inequality over the 1995–2018 period. Our counterfactual simulation results support our conjecture that the large employment shift from middle‐skilled to unskilled jobs reflects the adoption of labor‐saving technologies and the response to increased demand for services. We believe that our study sheds light on similar transformations in other developing economies. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Transition to alternative energy sources is increasingly recognized as a vital component of global efforts to mitigate climate change and foster sustainable development. This study examines the impact of alternative energy investments on employment, focusing on the renewable energy sector's role in generating job opportunities. Paper explores the mechanisms through which investments in alternative energy projects, such as wind, solar, hydroelectric, and biomass, influence employment outcomes. Key factors influencing employment generation, including technological innovation, infrastructure development, policy frameworks, and market dynamics, are analyzed to understand the complex interplay between alternative energy investments and labor markets. The study highlights the potential for alternative energy investments to create diverse employment opportunities across various sectors. Furthermore, it examines the socio-economic benefits of renewable energy projects in terms of job creation, skills development and income generation. By elucidating the relationship between alternative energy investments and employment, this research contributes to a deeper understanding of the transformative potential of renewable energy transition in devising strategies to maximize the socio-economic benefits of sustainable energy development. Findings show upward trend in average monthly nominal wages and salaries within the sector reflects positive growth in labor compensation, potentially influenced by factors such as rising demand for skilled labor and productivity improvements. Additionally government agencies and international organizations are main drivers of green investments and sustainable development in Azerbaijan. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

While the underlying causal linkage between trade credit and corporate growth has mainly been explored, the primary factors that channel the relationship are limited. This article hypothesises a nonlinear relationship between trade credit and corporate growth due to the existing theoretical arguments on the benefit and cost of using suppliers' credit by corporations to enhance growth. Based on a panel of 23,023 non‐financial companies from the United Kingdom over a 10‐year period, evidence from this study reveals a nonlinear (concave) relation between trade credit and corporate growth: positive for low trade credit received and negative for high credit received. We also find trade credit to be sensitive to financial crisis, financial constraints and growth strategy. The predictability is stronger during a financial crisis, among financially constrained corporations and corporations pursuing an aggressive growth strategy. We also find growth to be higher in firms that move closer to achieving an optimal credit level. This relationship holds for both the above‐ and below‐optimal deviations. These findings have implications for a more balanced and nuanced view of trade credit management. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

We expand previous U.S. state‐level research on the relationship between pro‐market institutions and labor market outcomes by examining this relationship at the U.S. metropolitan‐area level. Using panel data for 1992–2012 in a fixed‐effects model, we investigate the effect of pro‐market institutions on the unemployment rate, labor force participation rate, employment‐population ratio, and employment growth across 366 U.S. metropolitan areas. The results indicate that pro‐market institutions are associated with a lower unemployment rate, higher employment‐population ratio, and faster employment growth. These results suggest that local‐area policies are important for achieving favorable labor market conditions at the local level. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

In the 2000s, the European labour market experienced a number of significant changes including the transition to a more knowledge-intensive economy as well as the introduction of various economic policies (e.g. Eurozone, subsidized jobs, and social tax cuts). In times like these, the role of knowledge, which is essentially the driving force of innovation and thus promoting technological change and economic growth, is shifting due to new labour market conditions. The present study aims to explore how processes of local knowledge bases have been altered in this transformative environment and how these have impacted on local employment growth. The investigation considers three different knowledge bases in conjunction, incl. knowledge size, knowledge creation, and knowledge application. The study is based on an econometric analysis of a panel of 94 France NUTS-3 regions covering the period 1985–2015, utilizing patent data from European Patent Office (EPO) Statistical Patent Database (PATSTAT), and regional data from European Regional Database (ERD). The result shows that the role of knowledge for employment growth has indeed changed towards more specialized inputs in applications while the importance of greater knowledge size remains still important. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Abstract This study examines the firm level drivers of employment growth in East Africa in which they are categorized as firm specific, entrepreneur specific and business environment characteristics. Using a cross-sectional World Bank Enterprise survey dataset and pooled Ordinary Least Squares estimation (OLS), the results indicate that; (1) employment growth is significantly associated with firm specific characteristics (employment growth is positively related to firm size and innovation while it is negatively associated with the age of the firm), (2) a weak business environment characterized by electricity outages, informal payments and poor court system undermines the firm’s ability to contribute to employment growth while strong business environment such as access to finance is positively associated with employment growth (3) employment growth is also positively influenced by managerial experience. Policy recommendations are suggested.

This paper studies the labour market effects of the Broadband Initiatives Program (BIP), a programme authorized by the American Recovery and Reinvestment Act of 2009 to promote broadband deployment, mainly in rural areas. The BIP is one of the largest USDA broadband programmes implemented to date, providing more than $3.4 billion in grants and loans in FY 2010. We investigate the impacts of BIP investments on employment outcomes in BIP‐recipient Census tracts compared to similar tracts outside of BIP project service areas between the inception of the programme in 2010 and 2019. We use a quasi‐experimental research design that combines difference‐in‐difference regression with propensity score matching estimation to identify the causal effect of the BIP investments on employment outcomes. We find that the BIP investments had a positive overall effect on employment growth that increased over time. The subsidized investments had a greater effect on employment in startups than in incumbent businesses, in the goods‐producing sector and the information and communications technology sector than other sectors, and a greater effect in micropolitan census tracts than tracts located in metropolitan areas or in small town and remote rural locations. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Employment growth is one of the most crucial indicators for economic policy. Existing studies show that only a small fraction of firms experience high growth rates and create the most new jobs. Making use of recentered influence function regressions, this study examines the effects of process and product innovations on the employment growth distribution. The analysis is based on firm data from Eastern European countries. The effects of process innovation on job creation are ambiguous. An increase in firms with products and services that are new to the market shape the upper tail of the employment growth distribution. Product and service innovations thus cause skewness of the employment growth distribution and are a major determinant of job creation. This study therefore presents evidence on whether and how innovation activities affect employment growth and contributes to the lively debate about how to foster employment growth. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Several surveys of India's micro, small and medium enterprises (MSMEs) undertaken during 2020 and 2021 have revealed that these enterprises which account for about 90% or more of manufacturing employment were severely affected by the COVID-19 pandemic. In addition, there are data to indicate that even the formal manufacturing enterprises in India were adversely impacted by the COVID-19 pandemic. Yet, using Periodic Labour Force Survey (PLFS) data, we estimate that manufacturing employment grew by about 5 per cent in 2020–21 and about 8 per cent in 2021–22, reversing the previous downward trend. However, these increases in manufacturing employment based on the usual principal and subsidiary status (UPSS) concept do not correctly measure the growth in labour input. According to our estimates, labour input in manufacturing fell by about 6 per cent in FY2021 (financial year 2020–21) and rose by about 13 per cent in FY2022. Labour productivity in manufacturing rose sharply in FY2021 and fell slightly in FY2022. Analysing data on wages, tenure of job contracts, and provision of social security to workers, we find that during the two years affected by the COVID-19 pandemic, the large increases in manufacturing employment were not accompanied by any significant lowering of real wages, nor with a deterioration in labour standards. Instead, the evidence points towards a rapid formalisation of informal industrial enterprises, significant increases in the real product wages of regular and casual workers, and an improvement in labour standards for hired workers. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This study examines the firm level drivers of employment growth in East Africa in which they are categorized as firm specific, entrepreneur specific and business environment characteristics. Using a cross-sectional World Bank Enterprise survey dataset and pooled Ordinary Least Squares estimation (OLS), the results indicate that; (1) employment growth is significantly associated with firm specific characteristics (employment growth is positively related to firm size and innovation while it is negatively associated with the age of the firm), (2) a weak business environment characterized by electricity outages, informal payments and poor court system undermines the firm's ability to contribute to employment growth while strong business environment such as access to finance is positively associated with employment growth (3) employment growth is also positively influenced by managerial experience. Policy recommendations are suggested. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This study examines the impacts of collaboration and public participation on municipal growth in midsize U.S. municipalities. It specifically looks at the cases of land economic development projects across the nation and how local governments' population and employment growth are associated with public participation and collaboration. This study employs two methods—a survey of planners and officials and GPT-3 semantic search. Using a survey of planners and elected officials, four individual variables (traditional public participation, online public participation, public service collaboration, and staff regional meetings) related to collaboration and public participation were employed. Additionally, a semantic search approach was used to understand the current trend of public participation methods in real land development cases. The findings show that informal collaboration pushes population and employment growth, but the value of citizen participation is more contentious. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The entrepreneurial perspective and "legalist" view of informality suggests that many informal firms can compete with formal firms, and often "unfairly" so because informal firms do not pay taxes or comply with costly regulations that formal firms must shoulder. Thus, informal firms can negatively impact the performance of formal sector firms in critical areas such as jobs creation. A rigorous empirical analysis of such impact, however, is limited, and almost non-existent for jobs creation. This paper contributes to the literature by estimating the impact of competition from informal firms on the growth rate of employment of formal manufacturing SMEs in 109 developing and emerging economies. Methodologically, the paper contributes by drawing on several theoretical predictions of the entrepreneurial perspective and "legalist" view of informality as a defense against endogeneity concerns. The results show that the growth rate of employment among formal sector manufacturing SMEs declines by 1 percentage point for each one standard deviation increase in informal competition. This adverse effect is bigger in countries where the business environment is less favorable to operating in the formal vs. the informal sector. Our findings have important policy implications given the shortage of high-paying formal sector jobs in most developing countries. Our results indicate that informal sector is less effective in alleviating jobs scarcity than previously thought; informality may reduce the availability of high-productivity formal manufacturing jobs; policies supporting informal sector must distinguish between informal firms that compete more vigorously against formal firms from the rest to minimize the harmful effect of informality on jobs growth in the formal sector; and a better business environment is important for ensuring greater harmony between formal SMEs and informal firms in the manufacturing sector. Plain English Summary: Informal sector hurts the growth of good manufacturing jobs. The informal or unregistered sector is credited with providing jobs to millions of individuals around the globe. While the sector harbors some portion of opportunity-led entrepreneurs who are successful in terms of income, most jobs in the sector are low paying and have low productivity when compared to jobs in the formal or registered sector. The relatively high-paying and high-productivity jobs in the formal sector can be adversely affected by competition from informal sector. One reason for this is that informal firms do not pay taxes or comply with costly regulations that most formal firms must shoulder. This allows many non-complying informal firms to steal market share from the formal firms, undermining the latter's growth. Using firm-level survey data for 109 developing and emerging countries, this paper finds that competition from informal firms indeed reduces the growth rate of employment among formal manufacturing SMEs. As expected, this adverse effect is much larger when the cost of operating in the formal vs. informal sector is higher and the benefits lower. The finding has several important implications for policies on jobs availability, formalization of the informal sector, and overall development. For one, a better business environment is important for achieving greater harmony between informal firms and formal SMEs in the manufacturing sector. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

We estimate causal treatment effects of domestic and foreign acquisitions on plant survival, employment (growth) and the skill composition within acquired plants. To do so, we look at takeovers of private firms in Danish manufacturing and service sectors during the period 2002–2015. We use plant-, firm-, and industry-level information to control for the non-random selection of the acquisition targets, differentiated for domestic and foreign acquirers, by combining a difference-in-differences approach with a propensity score weighting estimator. Our results reveal positive effects on plant survival, employment (growth) and the skill intensity for domestic targets, while foreign targets reduce their skill intensity following an acquisition. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The unbalanced growth of employment among regions is ultimately attributed to the difference in industrial structure and industrial competitiveness. At the regional level, both shift-share EM1 and EM2 models can realize the purpose of the shift-share model, that is, thoroughly separate the effects of the industrial structure and industrial competitiveness on employment growth deviation. While the expectation is to further achieve a complete separation on employment growth deviation at the industrial level, the EM1 model is not competent, and this is precisely the role of the EM2 model—to separate the employment growth deviation caused by the differences in industrial structure and industrial competitiveness at the industrial level. Therefore, the shift-share EM2 model can realize the separation of the structural component and competitive component at the industrial level. In the process of industrialization, the manufacturing industry presents a significant trend of unbalanced growth in both spatial and industrial dimensions. The setting of the share component in the EM2 model covers the balanced growth of employment in both spatial and industrial dimensions. The allocation component is reinterpreted as the magnification or inhibition effect of industrial competitiveness on the initial industrial structure. In order to exclude the influence of the regional employment scale difference, the concept and calculation method of the regional deviation degree is put forward. Finally, the spatial pattern of unbalanced employment growth in China's manufacturing industry from 1999 to 2019 was analyzed using the shift-share EM2 model at the regional level. The results show that the spatial imbalance trend of employment growth in China's manufacturing industry is significant, the regional deviation scale of employment growth forms a north–south difference pattern, and the regional deviation degree forms a southeast to northwest difference pattern. Taking Sichuan Province as an example, the application of the shift-share EM2 model at the industrial level is demonstrated. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The City of Stockholm is conducting a scenario planning exercise to explore where potential future office development should be planned: closer to the city centre as in the status quo, in peripheral hubs on the outskirts of the city, or dispersed throughout multiple neighbourhoods. To support this exercise, this paper models these three scenarios using a nested work location and dynamic activity-based scheduling model. Our model predicts that high-income individuals have the highest consumer welfare benefits and are over-represented as workers in all scenarios. Developing more central office space will likely reinforce existing geographical patterns of income inequality in Stockholm; developing peripheral or dispersed office space, especially in the south of the city, will challenge these patterns. However, the model also illustrates a tension between the goals of equity and the environment. By taking advantage of existing transit infrastructure and congestion patterns, more central office development will result in lower vehicle kilometers travelled and lower car mode share for commuting than more peripheral or dispersed development. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper studies the relationship between turnover, hiring and employment growth in the long-term care (LTC) sector in England and sheds light on how challenges in both recruitment and retention affect the sector's ability to meet growing demand for care services. Using the Adult Social Care Workforce Data Set (ASC-WDS), a large longitudinal dataset of LTC establishments in England, and fixed effects estimation methods we: (a) quantify the relationship between the in/outflow of care workers and the expansion/contraction of employment within establishments, (b) establish the role of staff retention policy for workforce expansion, and (c) identify the role of recruitment frictions and its impact on hiring and employment contraction. Our analysis indicates that care worker turnover and employment growth are negatively related. A one percentage point increase in employment contraction is associated with a 0.71 percentage point rise in turnover, while a one percentage point increase in employment expansion is associated with a 0.23 percentage point fall in turnover. In contrast, we find that hiring rates and employment growth are positively related. A one percentage point increase in employment expansion is associated with a 0.76 percentage point rise in hiring, while a one percentage point increase in employment contraction is associated with a 0.26 percentage point decrease in hiring. We argue that the negative turnover-employment growth relationship within expanding establishments provides evidence that better staff retention is associated with higher employment growth. Using information on establishments' annual change in vacancies, and controlling for changes in new labor demand, we also find rising year-on-year vacancies amongst establishments with declining employment. This provides evidence that recruitment frictions drive the declining rate of replacement hiring amongst contracting establishments. Across sectors, we find that the employment growth-turnover and the employment decline-hiring relationships are relatively stronger in the private and voluntary sectors compared to the public sector, suggesting that the impact of staff retention and recruitment frictions on employment is more acute in these sectors.

Manufacturing industries are an asset or value added part of an economy, intimately linked with industrial and engineering design, and engaged in producing significant economic productions that can assist the national growth and development. The aim of the study was to estimate the profitability and employment growth of medium and large size industries in Ethiopia. The variables were chosen based on theoretical and experimental literature findings. In this study, an explanatory study design was implemented in carrying out this research with the prearrangement of secondary data collected from the panel data set of medium and large size manufacturing industries conducted annually by the central statistics agency over the period 2002–2011 E.C. The study employed panel data estimation methods to analyze the influence of medium and large size manufacturing industries on profitability and employment growth. Three panel data models are used: pooled ordinary least squares, fixed effect, and random effect estimation method. The Hausman test revealed the random model was the best fit for both profitability and employment growth. The diagnosticstest: normality, multicollinearity, heteroscedasticity, and autocorrelation tests were conducted on the data. The results obtained indicate that employment growth and profitability in Ethiopia are generally driven by medium and large-size manufacturing industries. The random model result shows that ownership, firm-size, advertising intensity and import intensity have a positive influence and substantial effect on profitability. But, the government has significant effect and a negative influence on profitability. The random model shows that government, advertising intensity and firm-size have significant effect and positive influence on employment growth. Nevertheless, import has significant effect and a negative influence on employment growth. Eventually, the employment growth and profitability have a positive influence and insignificant effect and the authors suggested further research in the areas by taking into account additional variables and newly emerging industries.

Related diversification has generated interest in policy (Smart Specialisation) and academic (regional branching) circles, linking path creation to regional capabilities and performance. We develop measures of occupational relatedness and complexity for local labour market areas in Sweden over the period 2002–12 to examine whether these constructs are helpful in explaining spatial and temporal variations in employment growth. The results indicate that increases in occupational relatedness are positively related to employment growth, while changes in occupational complexity have no significant impact. Separating the results either side of the global financial crisis shows that the influence of relatedness on employment is stronger pre-2008, while after the crisis building specialization in more complex occupations was positively associated with employment growth. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper investigates the role of human capital in explaining divergent employment growth within advanced economies. It adds a spatial dimension to William J. Baumol's theory of 'unbalanced growth' by linking it with the concept of 'job polarization'. We develop a theory of 'geographical unbalanced growth' that explains divergent employment trajectories in terms of skill restructuring. The theory is operationalized via a novel shift–share extension, which is applied to Australian data. We find evidence of ongoing regional divergence and for our proposed mechanism. The findings reinforce the importance of active policies to attract high-skilled jobs to non-metropolitan regions. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper uses a novel, globally harmonised city-level data set – with cities defined at the Functional Urban Area (FUA) level – to revisit the link between urban concentration and country-level economic dynamics. The empirical analysis, involving 108 low- and high-income countries, examines how differences in urban concentration impinge on changes in employment, Gross Domestic Product (GDP) per capita and labour productivity at country level over the period 2000–2016. The results indicate that urban concentration reduces employment growth but increases GDP per capita and labour productivity growth. The returns of urban concentration are higher for high- than for low-income countries and are mainly driven by the 'core' of FUAs, rather than by suburban areas. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The success of some early Asian emerging countries such as Korea, Taiwan, Singapore, and Hong Kong, followed by China and India since 1980, has raised the bar for developing economies. However, other Asian emerging countries, like those from Southeast Asia, including Malaysia, Thailand, Indonesia, and now Viet Nam, have not yet been able to replicate the performance of their Asian predecessors. Could it be that they are already experiencing the problems of a Latin American-style "middle-income trap"? In these two regions, the common factor has been the inability to "upgrade" their growth strategies when the existing ones have run their course and become counterproductive. The "middle-income trap" indicates that productivity growth is more difficult to sustain at higher and more complex stages of the catching-up process. While Latin American countries have exhausted their purely extractive development model (and productivity growth has stalled for decades), Southeast Asian ones have failed to recapture their pre-1997 high growth trajectories as they have been priced out of labor-intensive activities. This paper analyses how the "more of the same but hopefully better" supply-side-strategy that many mainstream economists and trade agreements focus on is the wrong solution for escaping the "trap"; instead, middle-income countries facing a slowdown in productivity growth should reengineer existing development strategies. Matching the performance of the above-mentioned countries requires a conscious, national-level strategy to promote investment in activities with higher long-term potentials for productivity growth, especially higher value-added manufactured exports. The main policy implication of this analysis is that Latin America must reignite productivity growth by adding value to their commodity exports and strengthening backward linkages of export products and services, while Southeast Asian countries should "deepen" their assembly operations in manufacturing. Nicholas Kaldor's argument that manufacturing has the greatest scope to realize increasing returns to scale remains true, even in today's decentralized, fragmented manufacturing systems, but the limited size of domestic markets means that middle-income countries must prioritize manufactured exports using all of the policy instruments still available to them. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Corruption can impose a significant financial burden on firms. Such burden is magnified when firms are financially constrained. The paper applies this idea to the impact of corruption on employment growth. Using firm‐level survey data for 85 countries, we find that corruption hurts more when firms are financially constrained than when they are not. Baseline estimate suggests that a one percentage point increase in overall corruption lowers growth rate of employment by 0.45 percentage points for financially constrained firms but only by 0.08 percentage points for financially unconstrained firms. The result passes several robustness checks. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper studies the impact of research and development (R&D) and innovation on employment growth, focusing on small and medium-sized firms. Employment effects of R&D and process innovation are unclear a priori as process innovation may be labor-saving or labor might have complementarities with other inputs. Employing firm-level data from 125 nations, results show that both R&D and innovation increased employment growth, suggesting that innovation was either capital-saving or labor had strong complementarities with other inputs. Upon splitting the sample into growing and contracting firms showed that contracting firms benefit from innovation but not from R&D. In other findings, sole proprietorships, larger firms, firms with relatively more experienced managers, firms with females as top managers, and firms facing the threat of informal competition had lower employment growth, while foreign-owned and government-owned enterprises have positive influences on employment growth. Finally, employment growth in shrinking firms was boosted in nations with greater economic freedom, but this growth is undermined by informal sector competition. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Despite the considerable resources devoted to SMEs by Islamic banks worldwide, and Nigeria in particular, there has been no rigorous empirical evidence regarding the effectiveness of Islamic banking inclusion on employment growth in SMEs globally. This study fills this gap by analysing the effectiveness of access to Islamic banking financing in promoting MSME's growth in Kano Metropolis, Nigeria. We focus on the impact of the credit lines facilitated by Jaiz Bank Plc in fostering firms’ growth measured in terms of employment. A survey based on a quasi- experimental approach was employed and the data were collected by means of a questionnaire distributed to a sample of 385 MSMEs' beneficiaries and non-beneficiaries of Islamic bank financing in Kano Metropolis, Nigeria. Using difference-in-difference and propensity score matching techniques to deal with selection bias, the study found significant positive effects on MSMEs’ employment growth. In addition, the paper highlights the important role of Islamic bank financing in mitigating the unemployment crisis in Nigeria. The paper recommends that improvement of the Islamic banking system by employing PLS financing, especially Musharaka, could foster MSMEs' financial inclusion and job creation.

Employability skills identification is becoming a key instrument to match the workforce demand in the current labor market. Which professional and general skills specific to the labor market are formed because of graduating from a certain level of education, are they different from the skills held in the labor supply and the skills needs in the labor market? A marked imbalance in the labor market is due to many inactive population and the inability of employers to find qualified staff and to fill vacancies. For this article the competencies considered essential for the main economic sectors in Romania for optimizing the integration of potential employees in the labor market were listed, the employers emphasizing that it is necessary to increase the current level of employability skills. The triangle of actors responsible for developing the skills needed to obtain and maintain a decent job is composed of the governments, the social partners, and the individuals.

For an adequate view over the Romanian labour market statistical data was explored, data sets published by INS Romania, EUROSTAT and CEDEFOP. On the topic of the future of the labor market, the interdependent dimensions of future work the number of available and the quality of occupations, discrepancy among the remunerations, social protection, employment relations and social communication. Data collection by economical active citizens - employment and unemployment rate underlined a low employment rate due to high number of inactive people, mismatched priority occupations, low qualifications and lack of needed skills for the job. The data collection considering forecast of the future work by occupations, economy sectors, job openings identified the same issues. Millions of jobs are transformed or jeopardized as a result of automation implementation. Other types of professions are created, and the routine assignments are taken over by artificial intelligence. The new careers request non-cognitive and digital capabilities.

We investigate the impact of financing and legal obstacles on firm growth across different firm sizes before and after the global financial crisis (GFC). Using two enterprise surveys in Vietnam, we find firms facing higher financing obstacles have lower sales and employment growth. The smallest firms are the most adversely affected by financing obstacles. The legal obstacles impede the employment growth of SMEs more than large enterprises, which is attributable to the tendency of firms to avoid tall poppy syndrome and the scrutiny of tax officials. Furthermore, we find that the negative effects of financing obstacles on small firms' sales and employment growth reduce in the post-GFC period. We attribute it to a higher proportion of small firms being able to borrow from commercial banks after the financial crisis, partly due to the introduction of new policies supporting SMEs from the Vietnamese Government. Overall, our findings recommend to policymakers that improvement in access to finance is imperative for productivity increases and job creation for small and medium firms.

This paper explores the relationship between the stock of interstate highways on employment growth of counties in Texas between 1983 and 2012. Using the Chernozhukov-Hansen instrumental variables quantile regression (IVQR) method, we examine the heterogeneous impact that highways have on employment growth at different quantiles of the conditional distribution while at the same time controlling for potential endogeneity. The results show that the employment growth effect monotonically increases as one shifts from the lower tail to the upper tail of the distribution. The range is 0.15 to 0.44, with the highest at the 95th quantile, compared to 0.189 for OLS and 0.213 for 2SLS. A 10 percent increase in interstate highway kilometers in 1983 led to about a 1.5 to 4.4 percentage point increase in county employment over a 29-year period. Our results also indicate that the counties with low initial levels of employment grew faster than those with a high initial level of employment and that this convergence monotonically decreases from the lower tail to the upper tail of the growth distribution. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This study investigates the role of female ownership, and its moderating role in shaping the effect of firm age and access to finance on firm growth. We use a sample of 7203 firms in Bangladesh, India and Pakistan and a mixed effects model, where both firm and regional characteristics are included. First, we test how women's ownership affects two measures of firm growth (employment growth and Birch Index). Second, we investigate how women's ownership influences the relationship between firm age and access to finance for firm growth. Our results indicate that gender is an important determinant of firm growth, but this is closely tied to firm age, access to finance, and varies with region and country. We conduct a robustness check using firm productivity instead of growth and we find largely opposite results for productivity compared to employment growth ownership. We also identify questions that emerge from our findings for managers and policy makers interested in women-owned firms. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]