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The authors analyzed the evolution of working from home (WFH) within industries in 12 European countries in the period 2008–2017 and studied its relationship with information and communication technologies (ICT).

The authors used data from the European Union Labour Force Survey (EU-LFS) to document the trends and levels of WFH within industries in 12 European countries. The authors further used the EU-KLEMS database and a difference-in-difference approach to study whether the fall in prices of ICT is associated with a higher share of employees who work from home in industries that depend more on ICT relative to industries that depend less.

The authors show that WFH has increased almost everywhere and that there is significant heterogeneity across industries. The authors provide evidence that the fall in prices of ICT is associated with a higher share of employees who work from home in industries that depend more on ICT relative to industries that depend less. This result also holds within age, gender and occupation groups. While the authors find no significant differences among gender and occupation groups, the positive association between the fall in ICT prices and WFH increases with age.

This paper has two main contributions: First, it reports that WFH has increased in European countries in the period 2008–2017. Second, it provides new explorations about the relationship between ICT and WFH by using the price variation of ICT.

Research shows that parental employment and education status affect the amount of parental childcare time, which is a fundamental determinant of children's outcomes. In this paper, the authors study whether being overeducated – working in a job that requires less education than the level of education acquired – is related to the time parents devote to their children.

The authors set two main hypotheses. First, overeducation might lead to more childcare time if being overeducated is the result of the individual prioritizing family over career. Second, overeducation might lead to less childcare time if overeducation is the result of lower ability. The authors estimate time use equations using the American Time Use Survey (ATUS) from 2004 to 2019.

The authors find that overeducated parents devote less time to childcare than matched parents, especially in the weekend sample. The authors’ results suggest that overeducation is not a deliberate choice prioritizing family over career.

To the best of the authors’ knowledge, this is the first study on the implications of being overeducated on childcare.

Promotion of entrepreneurial skills is often considered as an adequate policy to enhance job creation and economic growth. However, neither the definition of entrepreneurial skills, nor the costs and benefits of such a policy are clear. The purpose of this paper is to check whether the benefits of entrepreneurial skills extent beyond self-employment. The authors denote entrepreneurial skills as those competencies that enhance the likelihood of self-employment. Then the authors analyze whether they are rewarded in wage employment.

The authors estimate a Heckman selection model with wages in a salaried job as the main dependent variable and working in wage employment vs self-employment as the selection equation. The authors use a sample of higher education graduates from Spain, from the year 2000 interviewed in 2005 within the REFLEX survey.

Results reveal that alertness to new opportunities, ability to mobilize others and knowledge of other fields are the competencies that enhance self-employment in Spain. Yet, these skills are not rewarded in a salaried job. Therefore, benefits of policies fostering entrepreneurial skills do not extend to wage employment in Spain.

The exclusion restriction used in the analysis is father’s education. The authors assume that all the effect of parental education on wages goes through education attainment of the individual and her ability (proxied by her grade in secondary education). A better proxy for ability would be desirable.

The authors identify which competencies enhance self-employment in Spain. The authors find that these competencies are not rewarded in wage employment, so the benefits of policies promoting entrepreneurial education remain within self-employment activity only.