To explain the concentration of human capital in cities, urban theory conjectures that the metropolitan scale provides two sources of returns for the more educated: production benefits, both in terms of wages and non-monetary gains, and consumption benefits. By exploiting a unique survey on...

The paper estimates social returns to education in the Italian local labor markets. It shows that there is an important correlation between local human capital and average wages after controlling for individual characteristics. Estimated social returns to education range from 2 to 3%, whereas...

The paper provides an empirical investigation of labor market pooling. The analysis concentrates on Italian industrial districts and shows that there is scattered evidence of a widespread wage premium. In particular, there is no evidence of district differentials for the returns to seniority...