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This paper provides a snapshot of Mauritania's labor market using data from the 2004 national household survey. The results show that the labor market is characterized by lower participation rates, lower employment-to-population rates, and relatively higher unemployment rates than in neighboring countries. The non poor fare better in the labor market than the poor. Although the labor force participation of the poor is higher than that of the non poor, the poor display a higher unemployment rate and a lower employment rate than the non poor. The data also suggest a negative correlation between wage employment and poverty. Substantial differences in labor market indicators emerge when disaggregating the analysis by gender and age-group. Female non-participation is extremely high. Women systematically earn less than men independently of their sector and type of employment and controlling for other factors, such as education. Young adults face considerable difficulties in entering the labor market: more than half of the population aged 15-24 is neither studying nor participating in the labor force. As gender disparities remain important for similar levels of education, more work is needed to understand whether cultural factors may prevent women from entering the labor market. Concerning young adults, future poverty reduction strategies need to pay more explicit attention to the promotion of employment through informed labor market policies.

Age group --- Employment --- Household survey --- Informal sector --- Labor --- Labor and Social Protections --- Labor force --- Labor force participation --- Labor market --- Labor market indicators --- Labor market outcomes --- Labor market policies --- Labor Markets --- Labor Policies --- Population --- Population Policies --- Rural Development --- Rural labor --- Rural labor markets --- Rural Poverty Reduction --- Unemployment --- Unemployment rate --- Unemployment rates --- Wage determination --- Wage differentials --- Wage employment

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Many recent models have been developed to fit the basic facts on establishment and industry evolution. While these models yield a simple interpretation of the basic features of the data, they are too stylized to confront the micro-level data in a more formal quantitative analysis. In this paper, the author develops a model in which establishments grow by innovating new products. By introducing heterogeneity to a stylized industry evolution model, the analysis succeeds in explaining several features of the data, such as the thick right tail of the size distribution and the relations between age, size, and the hazard rate of exit, which had eluded existing models. In the model, heterogeneity in producer behavior arises through a combination of exogenous efficiency differences and accumulated innovations resulting from past endogenous research and development investments. Integrating these forces allows the model to perform well quantitatively in fitting data on Chilean manufacturers. The counterfactual experiments show how producers respond to research and development subsidies and more competitive market environments.

Data analysis --- Development research --- E-Business --- Economic Theory and Research --- Education --- Experiments --- Food and Beverage Industry --- Industrial Management --- Industry --- Knowledge for Development --- Labor and Social Protections --- Labor Policies --- Machinery --- Macroeconomics and Economic Growth --- Market competition --- Markets and Market Access --- Monopoly --- Paper industry --- Private Sector Development --- Product market --- R&D --- R&D expenditures --- Research working papers --- Researchers --- Retail --- Science and Technology Innovation --- Science Education --- Scientific Research and Science Parks --- Simulation --- Substitutes --- Supplier --- Techniques --- Textile industry --- Turnover --- Water and Industry --- Water Resources --- Weighting

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This paper examines the extent to which social networks among indigenous peoples have a significant effect on a variety of human capital investment and economic activities, such as school attendance and work among teenage boys and girls, and migration, welfare participation, employment status, occupation and sector of employment among adult males and females. The analysis uses data from the 10 percent population sample of the 2000 Population and Housing Census of Mexico and an empirical strategy that allows taking into account the role of municipality and language group fixed effects. The authors confirm empirically that social network effects play an important role in the economic decisions of indigenous people, especially in rural areas. The analysis also provides evidence that better access to basic services, such as water and electricity, increases the size and strength of network effects in rural areas.

Anthropology --- Communities and Human Settlements --- Cultural Heritage and Preservation --- Cultural Policy --- Culture and Development --- Disadvantaged groups --- Discrimination --- E-Business --- Economic opportunities --- Effective policies --- Employment opportunities --- Housing and Human Habitats --- Human capital --- Indigenous people --- Indigenous peoples --- Indigenous populations --- Industry --- Kinship --- Labor and Social Protections --- Labor Policies --- Migration --- Natural resources --- Policy research --- Policy research working paper --- Population --- Population Policies --- Private Sector Development --- Progress --- Respect --- Rural areas --- Rural Development --- Rural Poverty Reduction --- School attendance --- Social Capital --- Social Development --- Sustainable management --- Technology Industry --- Traditional values

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This paper compares and contrasts the performance of rural and urban manufacturing firms in Ethiopia to assess the impact of market integration and the investment climate on firm performance. Rural firms are shown to operate in isolated markets, have poor access to infrastructure and a substantial degree of market power, whereas urban firms operate in better integrated and more competitive markets, where they have much better access to inputs. Fragmentation may also help explain why urban firms are much larger, much more capital intensive and why they produce much more output per worker. Capital intensity and labor productivity are strongly correlated with firm size. Manufacturing technology choice does not vary strongly across space and increasing returns to scale are modest at best, suggesting that rural-urban differences in output per worker are predominantly driven by differences in capital intensity and Total Factor Productivity (TFP). The average TFP of firms in rural towns is much higher than that of rural firms in remote areas, but small firms in rural towns are not significantly less productive than small firms in other urban areas. A key finding of the paper is that market fragmentation and investment climate constraints impair the growth of the rural non-farm sector. Whereas urban firms exhibit a healthy dynamism, rural firms are stagnant and lack incentives to invest. Paradoxically, limited local demand due to market fragmentation is the most pressing constraint for rural firms, even though they face more severe supply-side constraints than urban firms. Promoting market towns in Ethiopia might be an effective means of capitalizing on the gains from market integration.

Access to Finance --- Access to finance --- Banks and Banking Reform --- Commercial finance --- Debt Markets --- Diversification --- E-Business --- Economic activity --- Economic development --- Economic Theory and Research --- Economies of scale --- Employment opportunities --- Enterprise growth --- Farm enterprise --- Farm enterprises --- Finance and Financial Sector Development --- Financial services --- Financial support --- Foreign investment --- Group of firms --- Infrastructure Economics and Finance --- International bank --- Investment and Investment Climate --- Labor and Social Protections --- Labor Policies --- Macroeconomics and Economic Growth --- Microfinance --- Overdraft --- Poor access --- Private Participation in Infrastructure --- Private Sector Development --- Rural Development --- Rural Poverty Reduction --- Small enterprises --- Transaction costs --- Urban areas

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Singapore is an interesting example of how the pattern of foreign investment changes with economic development. The authors analyze inbound and outbound investment between Singapore and a sample of industrialized and developing countries over the period 1984-2003. They find that Singapore's two-way investment with industrialized nations has shifted into skill-seeking activities over the period, while Singapore's investments in developing countries have increased sharply and become concentrated in labor-seeking activities. Singapore's increasing skill abundance relative to all countries in the sample accounted for 41 percent of average inbound stocks during the period, that is, USD 18 billion annually; the corresponding figure for outbound stocks was 40 percent, that is, USD 5.51 billion annually.

Bankruptcy and Resolution of Financial Distress --- Capital stock --- Corporate Law --- Debt Markets --- Developing countries --- Developing country --- Economic development --- Economic Theory and Research --- Emerging Markets --- Equity investment --- Finance and Financial Sector Development --- Foreign direct investment --- Foreign equity --- Foreign investment --- Homogeneous goods --- Human capital --- International bank --- International Economics and Trade --- International trade --- Investment and Investment Climate --- Investment patterns --- Labor and Social Protections --- Labor Policies --- Law and Justice --- Local markets --- Macroeconomics and Economic Growth --- Non Bank Financial Institutions --- Portfolio --- Portfolio investment --- Private Sector Development --- Returns --- Stocks --- Telecommunications --- Trade and Regional Integration --- Trust fund