Trade and wages in Uruguay in the 1990’s

The main facts of the Uruguayan labour market along the nineties may be summarized in three main phenomena: increase in wage inequality with an increase of the skill wage premium and changes in the inter-industrial wage structure; destruction of unskilled jobs, associated to trade openness and changes in the productive specialization that implied technical change biased to the employment of workers with higher skill; decrease of the role of unions in wage negotiation. This paper attempts an empirical strategy to evaluate the impact of increased trade openness in the industry wage premiums and in the skill wage premiums, combining micro and macro data. We find a link between trade openness and both industry and wage premiums in the 1990’s in Uruguay: in a given industry, reduced protection implied an increase in the skill premium and a lower industry relative wage

Protection, Openness and Factor Adjustment: Evidence from the manufacturing sector in Uruguay

Using a panel of Uruguayan manufacturing firms we analyze the adjustment process in capital, blue collar and white collar employment. Our results confirm the lumpy nature of factor adjustment, the relevance of nonlinearities and the interdependence between factor shortages. The average annual estimated output gap due to adjustment cost for1982-1995 was 2%. Trade openness affected the adjustment functions of all three factors. Highly protected sectors adjust less when creating jobs (reducing labor shortages) than sectors with low protection. This may be due to fears of policy reversal in highly protected sectors. Also, highly protected sectors adjust more easily (than low protection sectors) when destroying jobs (reducing labor surpluses), especially in the case of blue collar labor. This suggests that trade protection may in fact destroy rather than create jobs within industries, as firms in highly protected sectors are more reluctant to hire and more ready to fire than firms in sectors with low protection. The results for capital are qualitatively similar but quantitatively smaller. Overall the impact of higher international exposure is larger for blue collar workers than white collar workers.Adjustment costs, Adjustment functions, Openness

Protection, openness, and factor adjustment : evidence from the manufacturing sector in Uruguay

The authors use a panel of manufacturing firms to analyze the adjustment process in capital blue collar and white collar employment in Uruguay during a period of trade liberalization when average tariff protection fell from 43 to 14 percent. They calculate the desired factor levels arising from a counterfactual profit maximization in the absence of adjustment costs, generating a measure of factor shortages or surpluses. The average estimated output gap for 1982-95 is 2 percent. The authors'policy analysis shows that trade openness affected the adjustment functions of all three factors of production.Highly protected sectors adjust less when creating jobs (reducing labor shortages) than sectors with low protection. This may be due to fears of policy reversal in highly protected sectors. Also, highly protected sectors adjust more easily (than low protection sectors) when destroying jobs (reducing labor surpluses), especially in the case of blue collar labor. This suggests that trade protection may in fact destroy rather than create jobs within industries, as firms in highly protected sectors are more reluctant to hire and more ready to fire than firms in sectors with low protection. The results for capital are qualitatively similar but quantitatively smaller, suggesting that trade protection plays less of a role in explaining adjustment costs for capital. Interestingly, export-oriented sectors have lower adjustment costs for blue collar labor but not for white collar employment or capital, suggesting that export-led growth may be particularly successful in reducing blue collar unemployment.Economic Theory&Research,Labor Markets,Free Trade,Economic Growth,Educational Sciences

Multiple job holding: the artist’s labor supply approach

This paper analyzes a labor supply model in which individuals maximize a utility function that depends on leisure time, consumption and time devoted to an activity that is termed “artistic”. This activity may generate income that depends non linearly on hours dedicated to it. The individual can also work in the labor market (an activity that does not increase utility by itself) in exchange for an hourly wage, and obtain income not related to hours. Conditions are obtained that sort individuals in two groups, part time and full time artists, deriving their labor supply functions in both activities. The predictions of the model are tested empirically using a sample of musicians from a Uruguayan performing rights society.Labor supply, time allocation, artist’s labor supply, cultural economics

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

Total factor productivity, exports and prices

A heterogeneous firm trade model is developed to describe pricing behavior and output allocation between domestic and export sales in the face of exchange rate fluctuations. An export constraint is introduced, based on financial requirements o firms. Constrained firms would export less and expand more domestic aoutput, so domestic prices would tend to fall. This explains the negative correlation between the export share and the relative output price. The export response of firms is econometrically estimated, in terms of entry/exit probabilities in the export markets and the export share, for a panel of Uruguayan firms between 1997 and 2005, as functions of structural firm characteristics and environment variables, particularly the exchange rate. The impact of trade liberalization on total productivity of Uruguayan manufacturing firms is estimated, both with respect to final product as to intermediate input tariffs. The methodology controls for unonserved prices and demand shocks effects

"Sobreeducación" y prima salarial de los trabajadores con estudios universitarios en Uruguay

Along the 1990’s there was an increase in the number of people who attended college in Uruguay, both in employment and in the labor force. This article seeks to find if there is evidence of overeducation at the tertiary level, defined as mismatch between supply and demand of that skill level. The article presents an estimation of the wage premium for those workers who attended college compared to those who finished high school but did not pursue their studies further of college, for the whole population and within occupations. Returns to higher education are found to be non-decreasing along the decade, which suggests that the increases in supply were matched by increases in demand for such skill level. More specifically, the college premium is estimated in occupations where both workers with college and with high school can be found. The main conclusion is that in such occupations there is a premium for workers who finished college but not for workers who went for some years to college but did not graduate. The overall results do not support the hypothesis of significant overeducation in the case of university graduates. The data used refer to the Household Survey of Uruguay along the nineties.

Surgimiento de actividades de exportación exitosas en Uruguay: cuatro casos específicos

En este trabajo se presenta el análisis de cuatro casos específicos de surgimiento de cuatro actividades de exportación exitosas de Uruguay: software de computación, productos madereros, caviar y carne de esturión, y vacunas para animales. En cada uno de esos casos específicos se trata cómo empresas, asociaciones y varios gobiernos a varios niveles han manejado crisis de mercado y facilitado el suministro de los bienes públicos necesarios para cada actividad. El análisis de estos casos específicos presenta además una descripción de las características de los actores principales en cada ramo de actividad así como las externalidades positivas que brindan a los emuladores, especialmente la difusión de conocimientos sobre exportación. También se presenta en cada área un caso opuesto de actividad menos exitosa (electrónica, vino, carne de rana y biotecnología, respectivamente) así como una sección sobre implicaciones de políticas.Agriculture, Exports, Manufacturing, Services, Uruguay

The Emergence of new Successful Export Activities in Uruguay

El proyecto “El surgimiento de nuevas actividades exportadoras exitosas en América Latina” busca identificar los elementos claves en el proceso de descubrimiento de nuevas oportunidades de exportación en diferentes países de la región, con el objetivo de proponer políticas y reformas que permitan aumentar el ritmo de descubrimientos, en particular teniendo en cuenta la importancia relativa de diversas fallas de mercado. El enfoque general del estudio puede resumirse en que “los mercados se desempeñan bien al brindar señales de la rentabilidad de actividades que ya existen, pero su desempeño es pobre cuando se trata de actividades que podrían existir pero no existen. Aun si estas actividades no son nuevas en el sentido de que están presentes en economías más ricas, los productores se ven enfrentados a una considerable incertidumbre respecto a los costos y la productividad bajo las condiciones del mercado local. Introducirse en estos nuevos sectores típicamente requiere un inversor pionero, que indica a otros la rentabilidad de dichas actividades. Llamamos a este proceso de descubrir la estructura de costos interna de la economía auto-descubrimiento” (Hausmann y Rodrik, 2003). “En el proceso de auto-descubrimiento abundan las externalidades de información, debido a que la información de costos descubierta por un empresario no puede conservarse en forma privada. Si la empresa pionera resulta rentable, esto es fácilmente observable por otros. Los imitadores entran entonces en la actividad, la renta del productor establecido se disipa y se establece un nuevo sector. Si, por el contrario, el pionero quiebra, las pérdidas son soportadas en su totalidad por el empresario. En consecuencia, la actividad empresarial de esta naturaleza no es una actividad con alta recompensa: las pérdidas son privadas mientras las ganancias se socializan. Por tanto, los mercados no proporcionan suficiente actividad empresarial en actividades nuevas” (Hausmann, Rodríguez-Clare y Rodrik, 2006). El estudio realizado para Uruguay consistió en analizar cuatro actividades exportadoras nuevas para el país, en el contexto del marco teórico propuesto por el BID y siguiendo la metodología común establecida para todos los casos incluidos en el proyecto regional. Asimismo, en el marco de este estudio se construyó una base de datos armonizada de las exportaciones uruguayas de bienes a nivel de producto y empresa, que permite analizar la actividad exportadora a nivel de empresa, producto y mercado de destino en las últimas dos décadas. La disponibilidad de series de tiempo consistentes permitió superar las limitaciones de información que provocaban en las estadísticas los cambios introducidos en la clasificación de productos en cuatro oportunidades (1985, 1993, 1997, 2002). Este estudio busca una mejor comprensión de estos problemas en el caso de Uruguay, presentando, en primer término, una visión de conjunto del desempeño exportador de Uruguay y su política comercial, y un análisis de la actividad exportadora a nivel de firma. En segundo lugar se analizan en profundidad cuatro sectores: software, forestal, caviar y esturión, y vacunas de origen animal a partir de los cuales se extraen lecciones de políticas públicas.exportaciones, fallas de mercado, fallas de coordinación, proceso de auto-descubrimiento, software, sector forestal, vacunas de origen animal, caviar y esturión