The Labor Content of Exports Database

Cali, Massimiliano ; Francois, Joseph ; Hollweg, Claire H. ; Manchin, Miriam ; Oberdabernig, Doris Anita ; Rojas-Romagosa, Hugo ; Rubinova, Stela ; Tomberger, Patrick

World Bank, Washington, DC

关键词: JOBS;    EMPLOYMENT;    FINANCIAL SERVICES;    COUNTRY COMPARISONS;    PRIVATE SECTOR ACTIVITIES;   

DOI  :  10.1596/1813-9450-7615
RP-ID  :  WPS7615

学科分类：社会科学、人文和艺术（综合）

来源: World Bank Open Knowledge Repository

【 摘 要 】

This paper develops a novel methodologyto measure the quantity of jobs and value of wages embodiedin exports for a large number of countries and sectors forintermittent years between 1995 and 2011. The resultingLabor Content of Exports database allows the examination ofthe direct contribution of labor to exports as well as theindirect contribution via other sectors of the economy forskilled and unskilled labor. The analysis of the new datasets documents several new findings. First, the global shareof labor value added in exports has been declining globallysince 1995, but it has increased in low-income countries.Second, in line with the standard Hecksher-Ohlin trademodel, the composition of labor directly contained inexports is skewed toward skilled labor in high-incomecountries relative to developing countries. However, that isnot the case for the indirect labor content of exports.Third, manufacturing exports are a key source of labordemand in other sectors, especially in middle- andlow-income countries. And the majority of the indirectdemand for labor spurred by exports is in services sectors,whose workers are the largest beneficiaries of exportingactivities globally. Fourth, differences in the labor valueadded in exports share across developing countries appearsto be driven more by differences in the composition ofexports rather than in sector labor intensities. Finally,average wages typically increase rapidly enough with theprocess of economic development to more than compensate theloss in jobs per unit of exports. The paper also includesthe necessary information to build the Labor Content ofExports database from the original raw data, including statado-files and matlab files, as well as descriptions of thevariables in the data set.