Employer-provided Training and Knowledge Spillovers: Evidence from Italian Local Labour Markets

CROCE G. and GHIGNONI E. Employer-provided training and knowledge spillovers: evidence from Italian local labour markets, Regional Studies. Following suggestions from the literature on agglomeration and on social returns to education, this paper aims to uncover the relationship between local human capital and training. The results are consistent with the prediction that training should be more frequent in areas where the aggregate educational level is higher. This result is confirmed when different definitions of local human capital are adopted or different subsamples are considered. This paper also coped with the problem of omitted variables and spatial sorting by means of a two-step strategy based on instrumental variables.