Labor Demand and Trade Reform in Latin America

Fajnzylber, Pablo ; Maloney, William F.

World Bank, Washington, DC

关键词: ABSOLUTE VALUE;    ADJUSTMENT PERIOD;    ADJUSTMENT PROCESS;    AVERAGE TARIFFS;    BALANCE OF PAYMENTS;   

DOI  :  10.1596/1813-9450-2491
RP-ID  :  WPS2491

学科分类：社会科学、人文和艺术（综合）

来源: World Bank Open Knowledge Repository

【 摘 要 】

There are concerns that trade reform andglobalization will increase the uncertainty that the averageworker, especially the relatively unskilled worker, faces.The increased competitiveness of product markets and greateraccess to foreign inputs, the argument goes, will lead tomore elastic demand for workers. This may have adverseconsequences for both labor market volatility and wagedispersion. The authors argue that while the case that tradeliberalization should increase own-wage elasticities may bebroadly compelling for competitive import-competingindustries, it is less so for imperfectly competitive,nontradable, or export industries. They test the hypothesisusing establishment-level panel data from three countrieswith periods of liberalization. The data provide only mixedsupport for the idea that trade liberalization has an impacton own-wage elasticities. No consistent patterns emerge. Ifglobalization is making the lives of workers more insecure,it is probably working through some other mechanism.