To stimulate economic advancement, low- and middle-income countries need well-educated and trained workforces to fill the types of skilled jobs that drive economic growth. Improving educational quality and attainment and providing better training are all rightly put forth as policy...

This report examines skill trends in 24 OECD countries over the past several decades. The skill measures used include broad occupation groups, country-specific direct measures of skill requirements from international surveys, and direct skill measures from the Occupational Information Network...

This work explores the findings of the STEP (Skills toward Employment and Productivity) Skills Measurement Program that suggests that many workers are overqualified for their current jobs (based on the education those jobs require). The study also explores additional factors such as gender,...

A leading explanation for the growth of wage inequality is that greater use of information technology increased the demand for human capital. This paper identifies four different explanations for the relationships between computers, skills, and wages: computer-specific human capital, greater...

From the traditional craft hiring hall to the Web site Monster.com, a multitude of institutions exist to facilitate the matching of workers with firms. The diversity of such Labor Market Intermediaries (LMIs) encompasses criminal records providers, public employment offices, labor unions,...

Employing original, representative survey data, we document that cognitive, interpersonal and physical job task demands can be measured with high validity using standard interview techniques. Job tasks vary substantially within and between occupations, are significantly related to workers'...