Comparative Advantage and Skill-Specific Unemployment

We introduce unemployment and endogenous selection of workers into different skill-classes in a trade model with two sectors and heterogeneous firms. This allows us to study the distributional consequences and the skill-specific unemployment effects of trade liberalization. We show that the gains from trade will be distributed very unequally. While unskilled workers loose in terms of real wages and employment levels in the skilled labor intensive sector, skilled workers loose in terms of real wages and unemployment levels in the unskilled labor intensive sector. However, the inequality of workers between sectors is much larger for skilled labor than for unskilled labor. On average, unemployment among unskilled workers increases when a skill-abundant country opens up to trade.comparative advantage, heterogeneous firms, labor market frictions, unemployment, trade liberalization

Migration, Trade and Unemployment

A source of anxiety of policy makers and the public in general is the detrimental impactof globalization and immigration on unemployment. The transitory restrictions forworker migration after the EU enlargements of 2004 and 2007 exemplify the supposednegative effect of immigration on labor markets. This paper aims to identify the effectsof immigration alongside trade on unemployment taking into account the substitutabilityof worker and goods flows. We use data from 24 OECD countries over the periodfrom 1997 to 2007 and employ instrumental variables fixed effects and dynamic panelestimators in order to account for unobserved heterogeneity as well as the potentialendogeneity of migration flows and the high persistence of unemployment. We find asignificant negative effect of immigration on unemployment on average.Migration, unemployment, international trade, fixed effects instrumental variable panel estimators, dynamic panel estimators

Capacity Constraining Labor Market Frictions in a Global Economy

Convex vacancy creation costs shape firms’ responses to trade liberalization. They induce capacity constraints by increasing firms’ cost of production, leading a profit maximizing firm not to fully meet the increased foreign demand. Hence, firms will only serve a few export markets. More productive firms will export to more countries and charge higher or similar prices compared to less productive firms. Trade liberalization also affects labor market outcomes. Increased profits by exporting firms triggers firm entry, reduces unemployment and increases wage dispersion in the on-the-job search model with monopolistic competition.on-the-job search, capacity constraints, international trade, heterogeneous firms, monopolistic competition

The Determinants of Environmental Innovations and Patenting: Germany Reconsidered

This paper provides new evidence on the objectives and determinants of different typesof innovations and patents, environmental as opposed to other innovations and patents,and different variants of environmental innovations and patents. We investigate howfirm-specific and sector-specific driving forces differ by innovation type. Moreover, weoutline the functions that different innovation types have for environmental and innovationpolicies. We find that eco-innovators put relatively more attention to cost reduction, inparticular the reduction of energy and resource costs, compared to other innovators.Cost pressure and reliable, predictable and strict framework conditions of environmentalpolicy turns out to be an important driver for more incremental, firm-level eco-innovationscontributing to the diffusion of principally known technologies among firms. By contrast,more far-reaching patented eco-innovations are driven by the opportunity to create newmarkets and by government subsidies.Environmental innovation, patent, discrete choice models

Endogenous Labor Market Insitutions in an Open Economy

The paper sets up a two-country asymmetric trade model with heterogeneous firms,search frictions and endogenous labor market institutions. Countries are linked by tradein goods and non-cooperatively set unemployment benefits to maximize national welfare.We show that more open and smaller economies have more generous unemploymentbenefit replacement rates as a larger fraction of the costs is borne by foreign tradingpartners. These results are in line with empirical stylized facts. Additionally, we findthat the optimal level of unemployment benefits is independent from the level of unemploymentbenefits abroad and that non-cooperatively set unemployment rates areinefficiently high.Endogenous labor market institutions, unemployment, international trade, search frictions, heterogeneous firms

Income and democracy:Evidence from system GMM estimates

Does higher income cause democracy? Accounting for the dynamic nature and highpersistence of income and democracy, we find a statistically significant positive relationbetween income and democracy for a postwar period sample of up to 150 countries. Ourresults are robust across different model specifications and instrument sets.Income, democracy, dynamic panel estimators

Spatial Exporters

In this paper, we provide evidence that expanding firms tend to serve new markets which are geographically close and culturally related to their prior export destinations. We quantify the impact of this spatial pattern using a Chinese firm-level data set. To ensure an exogenous set of potential new destinations (25 EU countries, US and Canada) and an exogenous timing of entry, we focus on firms that benefited from the abrupt end of the textile quota restrictions in 2005. Controlling for firm-product and destination specific effects and accounting for possible multiple new export destinations we show that the probability to export to a country increases by 15 to 38 percent for each prior export destination with a geographical or cultural link with this country.export destination choice, spatial correlation, firm-level customs data, MFA/ATC quota removal

Spatial Exporters

In this paper, we provide evidence that expanding firms tend to serve new markets which are geographically close and culturally related to their prior export destinations. We quantify the impact of this spatial pattern using a Chinese firm-level data set. To ensure an exogenous set of potential new destinations (25 EU countries, US and Canada) and an exogenous timing of entry, we focus on firms that benefited from the abrupt end of the textile quota restrictions in 2005. Controlling for firmproduct and destination specific effects and ac- counting for possible multiple new export destinations we show that the probability to export to a country increases by 15 to 38 percent for each prior export destination with a geographical or cultural link with this country.export destination choice, spatial correlation, firm-level customs data, MFA/ATC quotaremoval

Maquiladoras and Informality: A Mixed Blessing

Mexico experienced a tremendous expansion of its export-processing maquila sector during the 1990s. At the same time, a large proportion of its labor force remains employed in the informal sector. Since one of the main objectives of the maquiladora program was to increase formal employment, we study how the rapid increase in maquiladora activity has affected labor market outcomes in Mexico. We develop a heterogeneous firm model with imperfect labor markets that captures salient features of the Mexican economy such as the differences between maquila and non-maquila manufacturing plants and the existence of an informal sector. We calibrate the model's parameters to match key cross-sectional moments characterizing the Mexican economy. Our quantitative model indicates that the expansion of the maquila sector during the 1990s produced an increase in informality of 0.9% and a reduction in the skill premium and overall welfare of 2.7% and 3.7%, respectively. A counterfactual experiment in which we shut down the informal sector completely results in a reduction of Mexican welfare of 33.5% relative to the equilibrium with an informal sector.offshoring, informal sector, maquiladoras, trade and labor markets, Mexico

Unemployment in an Interdependent World

We introduce search and matching unemployment into a model of trade with differentiated goods and heterogeneous firms. Countries may differ with respect to size, geographical location, and labor market institutions. Contrary to the literature, our single-sector perspective pays special attention to the role of income effects and shows that bad institutions in one country worsen labor market outcomes not only in that country but also in its trading partners. This spill-over effect is conditioned by trade costs and country size: smaller and/or more centrally located nations suffer less from inefficient policies at home and are more heavily affected from spill-overs abroad than larger and/or peripheral ones. We offer empirical evidence for a panel of 20 rich OECD countries. Carefully controlling for institutional features and for business cycle comovements between countries, we confirm our qualitative theoretical predictions. However, the magnitude of spill-over effects is larger in the data than in the theoretical model. We show that introducing real wage rigidity can remedy this problem.spill-over effects of labor market institutions, unemployment, international trade, search frictions, heterogeneous firms