This paper investigates the role of learning - through formal schooling and time spent in the labor market - in explaining labor market outcomes of urban workers in Ghana and Tanzania.  We investigate these issues using a new data set measuring incomes of both formal sector wage workers and the...

Improving access to productive employment is a key policy challenge, especially in low-income countries (LICs), where the only asset in abundance is labor. Building on ongoing research on earnings mobility, this study uses unusually rich longitudinal data from Ghana and Tanzania to identify...

In this paper we analyse the relative importance of individual ability and labour market institutions, including public sector wage setting and trade unions, in determining earnings differences across different types of employment. To do this we use the KwaZulu-Natal Income Dynamics Study data...

In this paper we analyse the relative importance of individual ability and labour market institutions, including public sector wage setting and trade unions, in determining earnings differences across different types of employment. To do this we use the KwaZulu-Natal Income Dynamics Study data...

In Ghana there is a highly developed apprenticeship system where young men and women undertake sector-specific private training, which yields skills used primarily in the informal sector.  In this paper we use a 2006 urban based household survey with detailed questions on the background,...

This paper addresses the question as to why we observe such large differentials in earnings in urban African labour markets after controlling for observable human capital.  We first use a three year panel across Ghana and Tanzania and find common patterns for both countries assuming that...

This paper provides an overview of how African labor markets have performed in the 1990s. It is argued that the failure of African labor markets to create good paying jobs has resulted in excess labor supply in the form of either open unemployment or a growing self-employment sector. One...

The poor performance of many African economies has been associated with low growth of exports in general and of manufacturing exports in particular. In this paper we draw on micro evidence of manufacturing firms in five African countries - Kenya, Ghana, Tanzania, South Africa and Nigeria - to...