Download or read book International Trade and Labor demand Elasticities written by Matthew J. Slaughter and published by . This book was released on 1997 with total page 62 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Abstract: In this paper I try to determine whether international trade has been increasing the own-price elasticity of demand for U.S. labor in recent years. The empirial work yields three main results. First, from 1960 through 1990 demand for U.S. production labor became more elastic in manufacturing overall and in five of eight industries within manufacturing. Second, during this time U.S. nonproduction-labor demand did not become more elastic in manufacturing overall or in any of the 8 industries within manufacturing. If anything, demand seems to be growing less elastic over time. Third, the hypothesis that trade contributed to increased elasticities has mixed support at best. For production labor many trade variables have the predicted effect for specifications with only industry contols, but these predicted effects disappear when time controls are included as well. For nonproduction labor things are somewhat better, but time continues to be a very strong predictor of elasticity patterns. Thus the time series of labor-demand elasticities are explained largely by a residual, time itself. This result parallels the common finding in studies of rising wage inequality. Just as there appears to be a large unexplained residual for changing factor prices over time, there also appears to be a large unexplained residual for changing factor demand elasticities over time.

Download or read book Trade Reforms Labor Regulations and Labor demand Elasticities written by Rana Hasan and published by . This book was released on 2003 with total page 66 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Using industry-level data disaggregated by states, this paper finds a positive impact of trade liberalization on labor-demand elasticities in the Indian manufacturing sector. These elasticities turn out to be negatively related to protection levels that vary across industries and over time. Furthermore, we find that these elasticities are not only higher for Indian states with more flexible labor regulations, they are also impacted to a larger degree by trade reforms. Finally, we find that after the reforms, volatility in productivity and output gets translated into larger wage and employment volatility, theoretically a possible consequence of larger labor-demand elasticities.

Download or read book Are Higher Levels of International Trade Causing an Increase in Income Inequality in Developed Countries written by Sarah Aerni and published by . This book was released on 1999 with total page 142 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: This study examines how increased international trade affects the own-price elasticity of the demand for labor. In a seminal work, Dani Rodrik (1997) hypothesizes that reducing trade barriers causes this elasticity to rise, as domestic firms are more able to substitute foreign labor for domestic labor. The empirical results show that the elasticities have not changed dramatically over the last two decades while trade has greatly expanded. This conclusion implies that the early empirical work done by M. Slaughter (1997) is not very robust and prompts further questions about the actual causes of the increasing wage gap in developed countries.

Download or read book How International Trade Affects Wages and Employment written by Ivan T. Kandilov and published by . This book was released on 2005 with total page 320 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt:

Download or read book Information and Globalization written by James E. Rauch and published by . This book was released on 2000 with total page 58 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: We model home country familiarity with business opportunities in a foreign country as a parameter in a matching process between domestic and foreign firms. We show that as familiarity increases the effect of relative national labor supplies on relative national wages declines, the elasticity of domestic labor demand increases, and the extent of pass-through' of trade tax changes to home wages increases. Since the volume of trade is increasing in familiarity, trade liberalization has a greater impact on wages when the initial volume of trade is greater, all else equal. As familiarity becomes complete, the results of the 2 x 2 Heckscher-Ohlin-Samuelson model are obtained: relative national wages are fixed by trade taxes independent of relative national labor supplies, domestic labor demand is infinitely elastic, and pass-through of tax changes to wages is complete' in the sense that it is determined entirely by production technology and no arbitrage opportunities remain.

Download or read book Demand elasticities in international trade are they really low written by Arvind Panagariya and published by World Bank Publications. This book was released on 1999 with total page 52 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: December 1996 For the first time in the economics literature, Panagariya, Shah, and Mishra obtain import demand elasticities for a small country (Bangladesh) that are very large. The elasticities are based on parameters of a utility function that are systematically of the correct sign and statistically significant. Using highly disaggregated data, both own-price and cross-price elasticities are estimated. Most economists are comfortable with the assumption that import demand elasticities facing small countries such as Austria, Belgium, and Denmark are approximately infinite. Yet the actual estimates of import demand elasticities for these and other countries are disturbingly low. Typical estimates range from 1-2, and in rare cases rise to 3. Such estimates seriously undermine the case for unilateral liberalization since they suggest considerable market power on the part of even small economies. They also raise doubts about the ability of exports to serve as an engine of growth. With import demand elasticities lying between 1 and 3, a 20 percent annual expansion in exports would, for example, lead to a substantial deterioration in the terms of trade. Panagariya, Shah, and Mishra analyze the U.S. demand for imports from Bangladesh for the products restricted under the Multifiber Arrangement. Because Bangladesh is only a small supplier of these products and close substitutes are available from many Asian and Latin American countries, they expected the elasticity of demand for Bangladeshi imports to be high. Their estimates of own-price elasticity are consistently high, exceeding 65 in all cases. This finding accords with trade theorists' prejudice that small countries can essentially behave as price takers but conflicts with the view in the empirical literature that demand elasticities rarely exceed 3 and are generally between 1 and 2. The authors' analysis differs from the existing literature in three ways. First, contrary to the general practice of postulating an ad hoc equation that violates trade theory, they derive a set of estimation equations from an explicit, utility-maximization model. They estimate these equations as a system and use the estimated parameters of the utility function to obtain the Marshallian own-price and cross-price elasticities as well as the income elasticity of demand. Second, they take explicit account of U.S. imports from competitors of Bangladesh. Rather than proxy competitors' prices by the prices prevailing in the export market, they rely directly on competitors' prices. Finally, they use highly disaggregated data that make the unit value of exports a far better proxy for price than is the case with the aggregate export data that are commonly used in this literature. This paper is a product of the Country Operations Division, Country Department I, South Asia. The study was funded by the Bank's Research Support Budget under research project Export Competitiveness and the Real Exchange Rate (RPO 679-59).

Download or read book The Effect of International Trade on Labour demand Elasticities written by and published by . This book was released on 2001 with total page 52 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: L'intensification du commerce international, qui exacerbe la concurrence sur le marché des biens, est également susceptible d'accroître la sensibilité de la demande de travail. Cette question est importante, car une élasticité-prix accrue de la demande de travail est susceptible de modifier le partage des coûts non salariaux entre employés et employeurs, de réduire le pouvoir de négociation des syndicats, et d'augmenter la volatilité de l'emploi. L'influence du commerce international sur l'élasticité-prix de la demande de travail a jusqu'à présent été analysée essentiellement au travers de deux approches. D'après la théorie factorielle des échanges, cette élasticité est infinie au niveau agrégé, pour un petit pays en libre-échange. Les études récentes, en revanche, se sont focalisées sur l'effet induit par l'ouverture sur l'élasticité des demandes individuelles des firmes, par l'intermédiaire de la réduction de leur pouvoir de marché. Ces approches nous semblent insatisfaisantes : la première aboutit à des résultats peu réalistes ; la seconde est centrée sur des effets qui concernent l'élasticité des demandes individuelles de travail, alors que c'est l'élasticité de la demande agrégée qui importe pour la politique économique, et qu'il n'existe pas de lien systématique entre les deux. L'analyse proposée ici est intermédiaire. Elle se base sur l'idée qu'une augmentation du coût d'un facteur de production influe sur la spécialisation commerciale de l'économie, au détriment des secteurs utilisant intensivement ce facteur. Ce mécanisme est d'autant plus important que l'ouverture de l'économie est grande, car le partage des marchés entre producteurs nationaux et étrangers est alors plus sensible aux prix relatifs. Ces arguments sont illustrés par un modèle simple, utilisant l'hypothèse d'imparfaite substituabilité entre biens nationaux et biens importés (hypothèse d'Armington). Dans ce contexte, nous montrons que le coût en termes de chômage d'une contrainte sur le salaire réel des nonqualifiés est d'autant plus important, pour une économie présentant un avantage comparatif dans les secteurs intensifs en main-d'oeuvre qualifiée, que l'économie est ouverte aux échanges. Un chiffrage sommaire pour la France montre que cet effet est loin d'être négligeable : le commerce international est susceptible d'expliquer plus de la moitié de l'effet de volume associé à une hausse du coût du travail non qualifié. Encore faut-il souligner que cette influence du commerce international serait nettement plus importante dans d'autres pays riches, comme les Pays-Bas ou la Belgique par exemple, dont le degré d'ouverture aux échanges est beaucoup plus élevé.

Download or read book Trade Liberalization Firm Performance and Labor Market Outcomes in the Developing World written by Paolo Epifani and published by World Bank Publications. This book was released on 2003 with total page 76 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Reviews the micro-level evidence on the effects of trade and investment liberalization in the developing world. He focuses, in particular, on the effects of the 1991 trade reform in India since it provides an excellent controlled experiment in which the effects of a drastic trade regime change can be measured. His main findings are: 1) There is evidence of trade-induced productivity gains (in this respect, however, India is an exception. 2) These gains mainly stem from intra-industry reallocation of resources among firms with different productivity levels. 3) The gains are larger in import-competing sectors. 4) There is no evidence of significant scale efficiency gains. Unilateral trade liberalization is often associated with a reduced scale efficiency. 5) There is evidence of a pro-competitive effect of trade liberalization. 6) There is no evidence either of learning-by-exporting effects or of beneficial spillover effects from foreign-owned to local firms active in the same sectors. 7) There is evidence, however, of positive vertical spillovers from foreign direct investment. 8) There is evidence of skill upgrading induced either by technology imports or by trade-induced reallocations of market shares in favor of plants with higher skill-intensity. 9) There is no evidence of trade-induced increases in labor demand elasticities. But direct evidence suggests that trade exposure raises wage volatility. 10) There is no evidence of substantial employment contraction in import-competing sectors.

Download or read book Firm Entry and Exit Labor Demand and Trade Reform written by Pablo Fajnzylber and published by World Bank Publications. This book was released on 2001 with total page 38 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Firms entering and exiting a market contribute almost as much to employment changes as firms continuing in a market. As much effort should be made to understanding sensitivity to wage changes in entering and exiting firms as to understanding wage elasticities in continuing firms.

Download or read book International Trade and Labour Market Performance written by Alessandro Turrini and published by United Nations Publications. This book was released on 2002 with total page 40 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: This paper summarizes the results of recent research into the effects of international trade on labor demand highlighting three areas which may require further investigation. These areas being: the relationship between labor market variables and trade policy measures, the issue of trade and labor market outcomes from a consistent cross-country perspective, and finally, the role of labor market institutions and production internalization.

Download or read book A Method for Calculating Export Supply and Import Demand Elasticities written by Mr.Stephen Tokarick and published by International Monetary Fund. This book was released on 2010-07-01 with total page 42 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Trade elasticities are often needed in applied country work for various purposes and this paper describes a method for estimating import demand and export supply elasticities withoutusing econometrics. The paper reports empirical estimates of these elasticities for a large number of low, middle, and upper income countries. One task for which trade elasticities are needed is in developing exchange rate assessments and this paper shows how the estimated elasticities can be used for this purpose.

Download or read book Price Elasticities in International Trade written by Robert Mitchell Stern and published by Trade Policy Research Centre. This book was released on 1976 with total page 392 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt:

Download or read book Law and Employment written by James J. Heckman and published by University of Chicago Press. This book was released on 2007-11-01 with total page 585 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Law and Employment analyzes the effects of regulation and deregulation on Latin American labor markets and presents empirically grounded studies of the costs of regulation. Numerous labor regulations that were introduced or reformed in Latin America in the past thirty years have had important economic consequences. Nobel Prize-winning economist James J. Heckman and Carmen Pagés document the behavior of firms attempting to stay in business and be competitive while facing the high costs of complying with these labor laws. They challenge the prevailing view that labor market regulations affect only the distribution of labor incomes and have little or no impact on efficiency or the performance of labor markets. Using new micro-evidence, this volume shows that labor regulations reduce labor market turnover rates and flexibility, promote inequality, and discriminate against marginal workers. Along with in-depth studies of Colombia, Peru, Brazil, Argentina, Chile, Uruguay, Jamaica, and Trinidad, Law and Employment provides comparative analysis of Latin American economies against a range of European countries and the United States. The book breaks new ground by quantifying not only the cost of regulation in Latin America, the Caribbean, and in the OECD, but also the broader impact of this regulation.

Download or read book Demand Elasticities in International Trade written by Arvind Panagariya and published by . This book was released on 2016 with total page 52 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: For the first time in the ...

Download or read book Sticky Feet written by Claire H. Hollweg and published by World Bank Publications. This book was released on 2014-07-03 with total page 123 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: This report quantifies labor mobility costs in developing countries and simulates the implied adjustment paths of employment and wages following a change in trade policy. High mobility costs are shown to reduce the potential gains to trade reform.

Download or read book International Trade and Labor Markets written by Carl Davidson and published by W.E. Upjohn Institute. This book was released on 2004 with total page 156 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt:

Download or read book The Impact of International Trade on Wages written by Robert C. Feenstra and published by University of Chicago Press. This book was released on 2008-04-15 with total page 420 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Since the early 1980s, the U.S. economy has experienced a growing wage differential: high-skilled workers have claimed an increasing share of available income, while low-skilled workers have seen an absolute decline in real wages. How and why this disparity has arisen is a matter of ongoing debate among policymakers and economists. Two competing theories have emerged to explain this phenomenon, one focusing on international trade and labor market globalization as the driving force behind the devaluation of low-skill jobs, and the other focusing on the role of technological change as a catalyst for the escalation of high-skill wages. This collection brings together innovative new ideas and data sources in order to provide more satisfying alternatives to the trade versus technology debate and to assess directly the specific impact of international trade on U.S. wages. This timely volume offers a thorough appraisal of the wage distribution predicament, examining the continued effects of technology and globalization on the labor market.