Globalization, Returns to Accumulationa and the World Distribution of Output

This paper examines the extent to which the process of globalization can explain the observed widening in the cross--country distribution of output--per--worker. In particular examine whether the opening up of trade in a Hecksher--Ohlin type model of trade can explain the observed changes. On the theoretical front the model highlights that, when the labor market is subject to a holdup problem, then the opening up of trade can cause an increase in the dispersion of income across countries similar to that observed in the data due to the emergence of a discrepancy between the private and social returns to capital accumulation that favors capital abundant countries. On the empirical front, we document the relevance of the model by examining whether growth patterns, decomposition exercises and specialization patterns support the model's predictions. Overall we find that over 50% of the recently observed increase in income dispersion across countries can be accounted for by the mechanism exemplified by the model.

Technology Shocks and Employment

Recent empirical work has suggested that in response to a positive technology shock employment shows a persistent decline. This finding has raised doubts concerning the relevance of the RBC model as well as the quantitative significance of technology shocks as a source of aggregate fluctuations. We show that the standard, open economy, flexible price RBC model can easily match the negative conditional correlation between productivity and employment quite well if domestic and foreign goods are not good substitutes in the short run. The computed variance-decompositions also suggest that there is no empirical inconsistency between matching this correlation and accepting that technology shocks are the main source of variation in output while demand shocks are the main source of variation in employment. Moreover, using a low rather than a high degree of substitution does not worsen model performance along any other dimensions.technological shocks; employment; open economy; flexible prices; staggered prices

Why has the Employment-Productivity Tradeoff among Industrialized Countries been so strong?

This paper is motivated by a set of cross-country observations on labor productivity growth among industrial countries over the period 1960-1997. In particular, we show that over this period, the speed of convergence among industrialized countries has decreased substantially while the negative effect of a country's own employment growth (or labor force growth) on labor productivity has increased dramatically. The main contribution of the paper is to show how these observations are consistent with the view that industrialized countries have been undergoing a particularly drastic technological revolution over the recent past. In effect, we show how the process of endogenous technological adoption, following the diffusion of a general purpose technology, can explain these observations by causing the emergence of an AK accumulation phase where demographic factors temporarily become an major determinant of labor productivity growth. Our estimation of the model implies that the AK phase has been in effect since the early to mid-seventies, but that this phase may now be coming to an end. An important contribution of the paper is to analyze growth experiences across advanced industrialized countries within an open economy framework and to evaluate the explanation by estimating a multicountry dynamic general model.