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dc.contributor.authorO’Clery, Neave
dc.contributor.authorGomez-Lievano, Andres
dc.contributor.authorLora, Eduardo
dc.date.accessioned2020-12-16T22:44:43Z
dc.date.issued2016-10
dc.identifier.citationO’Clery, Neave, Andres Gomez-Lievano, and Eduardo Lora. “The Path to Labor Formality: Urban Agglomeration and the Emergence of Complex Industries.” CID Research Fellow and Graduate Student Working Paper Series 2016.78, Harvard University, Cambridge, MA, October 2016.en_US
dc.identifier.urihttps://nrs.harvard.edu/URN-3:HUL.INSTREPOS:37366600*
dc.description.abstractLabor informality, associated with low productivity and lack of access to social security services, dogs developing countries around the world. Rates of labor (in)formality, however, vary widely within countries. This paper presents a new stylized fact, namely the systematic positive relationship between the rate of labor formality and the working age population in cities. We hypothesize that this phenomenon occurs through the emergence of complex economic activities: as cities become larger, labor is allocated into increasingly complex industries as firms combine complementary capabilities derived from a more diverse pool of workers. Using data from Colombia, we use a network-based model to show that the technological proximity (derived from worker transitions between industry pairs) of current industries in a city to potential new complex industries governs the growth of the formal sector in the city. The mechanism proposed has robust strong predictive power, and fares better than alternative explanations of (in)formality.en_US
dc.language.isoen_USen_US
dc.publisherCenter for International Development at Harvard Universityen_US
dc.relation.isversionofhttps://www.hks.harvard.edu/centers/cid/publications/fellow-graduate-student-working-papersen_US
dash.licenseLAA
dc.titleThe Path to Labor Formality: Urban Agglomeration and the Emergence of Complex Industriesen_US
dc.typeResearch Paper or Reporten_US
dc.description.versionAccepted Manuscripten_US
dc.relation.journalCID Research Fellow and Graduate Student Working Paper Seriesen_US
dc.date.available2020-12-16T22:44:43Z
dash.contributor.affiliatedLora, Eduardo


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