116 research outputs found
Firms' Main Market, Human Capital and Wages
Recent international trade literature emphasizes two features in characterizing the current patterns of trade: efficiency heterogeneity at the firm level and quality differentiation. This paper explores human capital and wage differences across firms in that context. We build a partial equilibrium model predicting that firms selling in more-remote markets employ higher human capital and pay higher wages to employees within each education group. The channel linking these variables is firms’ endogenous choice of quality. Predictions are tested using Spanish employer-employee matched data that classify firms according to four main destination markets: local, national, European Union, and rest of the World. Employees’ average education is increasing in the remoteness of firm’s main output market. Market–destination wage premia are large, increasing in the remoteness of the market, and increasing in individual education. These results suggest that increasing globalization may play a significant role in raising wage inequality within and across education groups
Age and skill bias of trade liberalisation? : heterogeneous employment effects of EU Eastern Enlargement
This study analyses the 2004 Eastern Enlargement to the European Union to
obtain evidence on the employment effects of an increase in trade liberalisation. The
Enlargement is thought to generate a trade-induced demand shock with no (or only
limited) supply effects. Besides the variation over time induced by the Enlargement,
identification of the effects is based on a Melitz (2003) type productivity term to
differentiate firms by the extent of exposure to the demand shock. The idea is that the
effects of the demand shock should be driven by differences in firm-level productivity
from the period before the new member countries actually entered the EU. German
linked employer-employee data allow to observe the relation of initial establishment
productivity with employment changes over a long panel from 1995 to 2009. The
estimates show that the Enlargement had a negative effect on establishment-level
employment growth, which is driven by increased worker separations and increased
job destruction. Besides the overall employment effect, the study focuses on effect
heterogeneity across age and skill groups of the workforce. These estimates point to a
skill bias in the effect of the Enlargement that disadvantages low- and medium-skilled
workers in terms of higher worker separation and job destruction. In addition, lowskilled
workers suffer fewer accessions by firms, where against medium-skilled workers
enjoy increased accessions and creation of new jobs. Besides this indication for a skill
bias, there are no clear indications that point to an age bias in the employment effect
of the Eastern Enlargement
Solubility of Rock in Steam Atmospheres of Planets
Extensive experimental studies show that all major rock-forming elements (e.g., Si, Mg, Fe, Ca, Al, Na, K) dissolve in steam to a greater or lesser extent. We use these results to compute chemical equilibrium abundances of rocky-element-bearing gases in steam atmospheres equilibrated with silicate magma oceans. Rocky elements partition into steam atmospheres as volatile hydroxide gases (e.g., Si(OH)4, Mg(OH)2, Fe(OH)2, Ni(OH)2, Al(OH)3, Ca(OH)2, NaOH, KOH) and via reaction with HF and HCl as volatile halide gases (e.g., NaCl, KCl, CaFOH, CaClOH, FAl(OH)2) in much larger amounts than expected from their vapor pressures over volatile-free solid or molten rock at high temperatures expected for steam atmospheres on the early Earth and hot rocky exoplanets. We quantitatively compute the extent of fractional vaporization by defining gas/magma distribution coefficients and show that Earth's subsolar Si/Mg ratio may be due to loss of a primordial steam atmosphere. We conclude that hot rocky exoplanets that are undergoing or have undergone escape of steam-bearing atmospheres may experience fractional vaporization and loss of Si, Mg, Fe, Ni, Al, Ca, Na, and K. This loss can modify their bulk composition, density, heat balance, and interior structure
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