De Raíz Diversa. Revista Especializada en Estudios Latinoamericanos (Vol. 1 no. 2 oct-dic 2014)

/Índice/ Autores que colaboran en este número > 9; Editorial > 13; /Artículos/ Oficio de historiador, ¿nuevo paradigma o positivismo? -Carlos Barros > 17; Desafíos de las Ciencias Sociales en América Latina. La experiencia en México. -Carlos Hernández Alcántara > 49; México y América Latina sujetos a la vulnerabilidad externa. -Arturo Huerta González > 69; Sertão Digital. Estudo de caso acerca do uso da Internet em Várzea Alegre, CE. -Maria Erica de Oliveira Lima, Priscila Dallva de Oliveira Falcã > 101; Pranchada infamante: Resistência ao castigo físico do soldado imperial na Guerra contra o Paraguai. -Mário Maestri > 125; Un proyecto de modernidad católico: el Ecuador de García Moreno. -Perla P. Valero Pacheco > 155 El mito del bilingüismo y la colonización lingüística en Paraguay. -Gaya Makaran > 183; Las primeras aproximaciones de la política exterior de Brasil en África y la utilización de las prácticas culturales de la población negra brasileña. -Mónica Velasco Molina > 213; /Reseñas/ Gustavo Ogarrio Badillo.Breve historia de la transición y el olvido. Una lectura de la democratización en América Latina. -Orlando Lima Rocha > 247; Carlos Oliva.Semiótica y capitalismo. Ensayos sobre la obra de Bolívar Echeverría. -Alejandro Fernando González Jiménez > 253; Eduardo Subirats.Mito y literatura: revalorar el simbolismo mitológico. -Carlos Pineda > 259; David Gómez Arredondo.Calibán en cuestión. Aproximaciones teóricas y filosóficas desde nuestra América. -Jaime Ortega Reyna > 265

International Trade and Polarization in the Labor Market

The paper builds an argument that international trade can be one explanation behind polarization of employment in the labor market observed in developed countries such as U.K. and U.S. It considers a small open economy, having production sectors which use three types of labor: high-skill, middle-skill and low-skill. The economy faces an increase in the relative price of the high-skill intensive sector. Using decision rules for choosing middle-skill and low-skill education, it is shown that such a terms of trade shock can lead to higher shares of high-skill as well as low-skill workers in the total workforce. The effects off-shoring on wages and job composition are also studied. That of low-skill and high-skill tasks, not middle-skill tasks, is shown to contribute towards polarization in job composition

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