Training and the Density of Economic Activity: Evidence from Italy

Giorgio Brunello and Maria De Paola ()

No 1173, IZA Discussion Papers from Institute of Labor Economics (IZA)

Abstract: We use a search and matching model to investigate the economic relationship between training and local economic conditions. We identify two aspects of this relationship going in opposite directions: on the one hand, the complementarity between local knowledge spillovers and training generates a positive correlation with local density; on the other hand, the negative influence of higher wages in denser areas reduces training. Overall the relationship can be either positive or negative, depending on the relative strength of the two effects. Our empirical analysis, based on a sample of Italian firms, shows that training is lower in provinces with higher labor market density, measured as the number of employees per squared kilometer. This empirical result confirms previous evidence by Brunello and Gambarotto (2004) based on UK data.

Keywords: Italy; training; local labor markets (search for similar items in EconPapers)
JEL-codes: J24 R12 (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Pages: 45 pages
Date: 2004-06
New Economics Papers: this item is included in nep-geo, nep-lab, nep-ltv and nep-ure
References: Add references at CitEc
Citations: View citations in EconPapers (16)

Published - published in: Labour Economics, 2008, 15 (1), 118-140

Downloads: (external link)
https://docs.iza.org/dp1173.pdf (application/pdf)

Related works:
This item may be available elsewhere in EconPapers: Search for items with the same title.

Export reference: BibTeX RIS (EndNote, ProCite, RefMan) HTML/Text

Persistent link: https://EconPapers.repec.org/RePEc:iza:izadps:dp1173

Ordering information: This working paper can be ordered from
IZA, Margard Ody, P.O. Box 7240, D-53072 Bonn, Germany

Access Statistics for this paper

More papers in IZA Discussion Papers from Institute of Labor Economics (IZA) IZA, P.O. Box 7240, D-53072 Bonn, Germany. Contact information at EDIRC.
Bibliographic data for series maintained by Holger Hinte ().