Lecture: Skill diversity and the evolution of formal employment in cities (4 November)
What drives formal urban employment in a developing economy with informality? In this PEAK Urban lecture, Eduardo Lora investigates a model that combines two sources of urban agglomeration economies: complementarities at the firm level between workers with diverse skills, and improved chances of matching between firms and workers in larger cities.
Workers are gradually absorbed from outside the formal sector as new industries appear via an evolutionary process of skill recombination at the firm level. The model predicts: faster firm entry in less complex sectors; higher wages in more complex sectors; formal employment layers of increasing complexity; faster formal employment growth in cities with abundance of the diverse skills needed in complex sectors; and higher formal occupation rates in larger cities.
The lecture will be followed by a Q&A session. It will take place at Oxford Department of International Development, 3 Mansfield Road, Oxford OX1 3TB on 4 November between 5 and 7 pm. More information is available on the PEAK Urban website.