The Impact of Trade Liberalization on Employment, Capital, and Productivity Dynamics: Evidence from the Uruguayan Manufacturing Sector

This paper studies the impact of trade liberalization on labor and capital gross flows and productivity in the Uruguayan manufacturing sector. Uruguay opened its economy in the presence of -at least initially- strong unions and structurally different industry concentration levels. Higher international exposure implied slightly higher job creation and an important increase in job and capital destruction. Unions were able to dampen this effect. Although not associated with higher creation rates, unions were effective in reducing job and capital destruction. Industry concentration also was found to mitigate the destruction of jobs but had no effect on job creation or capital dynamics. The changes in the use of labor and capital were accompanied by an increase in total factor productivity, especially in sectors where tariff reductions were larger and unions were not present. The authors found no evidence of varying productivity dynamics across different industry concentration levels.

The Impact of Trade Liberalization on Employment, Capital and Productivity Dynamics:

This paper studies the impact of trade liberalization on labor and capital gross flows and productivity in the Uruguayan Manufacturing Sector. Uruguay opened its economy in the presence of strong –at least initially- unions and structural different industry concentration levels. Higher international exposure implied a slightly higher job creation and an important increase in job and capital destruction. Unions were able to ameliorate this effect. Although not associated with higher creation rates, unions were effective in reducing job and capital destruction. Industry concentration also was found to mitigate the destruction of jobs but had no effect on job creation nor in capital dynamics. The changes in the use of labor and capital brought an increase in total factor productivity specially in sectors where tariff reductions were larger and unions were not present. We found no evidence of varying productivity dynamics across different industry concentration levelsjob creation, job destruction, total factor productivity

The Economic Effects of Unions in Latin America: Their Impact on Wages and the Economic Performance of Firms in Uruguay

This study examines the impact of unionization and the level of centralization in bargaining, at the level of the industry or the firm, on wages and on the economic performance of firms within the manufacturing sector in Uruguay, using a panel of establishments for the period 1988 to 1995. In doing so, we control for the degree of exposure to international and regional competition as well as for industry and firm characteristics. The main findings suggest that unionization increases wages and employment and promotes investment due to firms substituting labor by capital. Unions tend to organize in those plants with highest rates of profits, but promote increases in productivity and prevent profitability increases. The mechanism at work seems to be that firms moved to more capital-intensive technologies, hence increasing the rate of growth of labor productivity and reducing that of profitability. Given the negative effect of unionization at the industry level on the rate of growth of profitability of firms, results also suggest that unions tended to organize and to be stronger in those sectors in which extra rents were higher due to monopoly power. The evidence also suggests that firm-level negotiations take into account the interests of both parties, so that enhanced productivity and probably survival were achieved together with lower rates of substitution between labor and capital and/or lower profits.

Caracterización en salud familiar del sector 4 del barrio Villa Betel

El objetivo de este trabajo es vincular a la comunidad en la actividad de mejoramiento de la salud en concordancia con los objetivos gubernamentales en cuanto a actividades de promoción y prevención en salud; se procedió a la identificación de la comunidad del sector 4 del barrio Villa Betel para la aplicación de las actividades de diagnóstico comunitario y sus respectivas acciones orientadas al mejoramiento de las problemáticas identificadas y al alcance del grupo de trabajo. Por tal razón de realizó una investigación exhaustiva de los aspectos históricos, geográficos y culturales que nos permitieron identificar las debilidades y fortalezas de la comunidad para crear estrategias que nos permitan abordar las problemáticas que involucra a las familias de esta comunidad

evidence from the manufacturing sector in Uruguay

La investigación aborda el empleo y las dinámicas del capital y la productividad en el sector industrial nacional, durante el período 1982-1995, centrándose en los efectos de la conversión tecnológica. El estudio se basa en datos de la Encuesta Industrial anual realizada por el Instituto Nacional de Estadístic

The Impact of Trade Liberalization on Employment, Capital, and Productivity Dynamics: Evidence from the Uruguayan Manufacturing Sector

This paper studies the impact of trade liberalization on labor and capital gross flows and productivity in the Uruguayan manufacturing sector. Uruguay opened its economy in the presence of -at least initially- strong unions and structurally different industry concentration levels. Higher international exposure implied slightly higher job creation and an important increase in job and capital destruction. Unions were able to dampen this effect. Although not associated with higher creation rates, unions were effective in reducing job and capital destruction. Industry concentration also was found to mitigate the destruction of jobs but had no effect on job creation or capital dynamics. The changes in the use of labor and capital were accompanied by an increase in total factor productivity, especially in sectors where tariff reductions were larger and unions were not present. The authors found no evidence of varying productivity dynamics across different industry concentration levels.

The Economic Effects of Unions in Latin America: Their Impact on Wages and the Economic Performance of Firms in Uruguay

This study examines the impact of unionization and the level of centralization in bargaining, at the level of the industry or the firm, on wages and on the economic performance of firms within the manufacturing sector in Uruguay, using a panel of establishments for the period 1988 to 1995. The main findings suggest that unionization increases wages and employment and promotes investment due to firms substituting labor by capital. Unions tend to organize in those plants with highest rates of profits, but promote increases in productivity and prevent profitability increases. Given the negative effect of unionization at the industry level on the rate of growth of profitability of firms, results also suggest that unions tended to organize and to be stronger in those sectors in which extra rents were higher due to monopoly power.

The impact of trade liberalization on employment, capital, and productivity dynamics: evidence from the uruguayan manufacturing sector

This paper studies the impact of trade liberalization on labor and capital gross flows and productivity in the Uruguayan Manufacturing Sector. Higher international exposure implied a slightly higher job creation, an important increase in job and capital destruction, and an increase in productivity. Unions dampened these effects. Although not associated with higher creation rates, unions were effective in reducing job and capital destruction but they also reduced productivity growth. Industry concentration mitigated the destruction of jobs but had no effects on job creation or in capital and productivity dynamics.Trade liberalization, Job creation, Job destruction, TFP,