Trade Liberalization, Firm Performance, and Labor Market Outcomes in the Developing World

Trade Liberalization, Firm Performance, and Labor Market Outcomes in the Developing World
Author: Paolo Epifani
Publisher: World Bank Publications
Total Pages: 76
Release: 2003
Genre: Comercio regional
ISBN:

Reviews the micro-level evidence on the effects of trade and investment liberalization in the developing world. He focuses, in particular, on the effects of the 1991 trade reform in India since it provides an excellent controlled experiment in which the effects of a drastic trade regime change can be measured. His main findings are: 1) There is evidence of trade-induced productivity gains (in this respect, however, India is an exception. 2) These gains mainly stem from intra-industry reallocation of resources among firms with different productivity levels. 3) The gains are larger in import-competing sectors. 4) There is no evidence of significant scale efficiency gains. Unilateral trade liberalization is often associated with a reduced scale efficiency. 5) There is evidence of a pro-competitive effect of trade liberalization. 6) There is no evidence either of learning-by-exporting effects or of beneficial spillover effects from foreign-owned to local firms active in the same sectors. 7) There is evidence, however, of positive vertical spillovers from foreign direct investment. 8) There is evidence of skill upgrading induced either by technology imports or by trade-induced reallocations of market shares in favor of plants with higher skill-intensity. 9) There is no evidence of trade-induced increases in labor demand elasticities. But direct evidence suggests that trade exposure raises wage volatility. 10) There is no evidence of substantial employment contraction in import-competing sectors.

Trade Liberalization, Firm Performance, and Labor Market Outcomes in the Developing World

Trade Liberalization, Firm Performance, and Labor Market Outcomes in the Developing World
Author: Paolo Epifani
Publisher:
Total Pages: 68
Release: 2016
Genre:
ISBN:

Epifani reviews the micro-level evidence on the effects of trade and investment liberalization in the developing world. He focuses, in particular, on the effects of the 1991 trade reform in India since it provides an excellent controlled experiment in which the effects of a drastic trade regime change can be measured. His main findings are:ʼn There is evidence of trade-induced productivity gains (in this respect, however, India is an exception).ʼn These gains mainly stem from intra-industry reallocation of resources among firms with different productivity levels.ʼn The gains are larger in import-competing sectors.ʼn There is no evidence of significant scale efficiency gains. Unilateral trade liberalization is often associated with a reduced scale efficiency.ʼn There is evidence of a pro-competitive effect of trade liberalization.ʼn There is no evidence either of learning-by-exporting effects or of beneficial spillover effects from foreign-owned to local firms active in the same sectors.ʼn There is evidence, however, of positive vertical spillovers from foreign direct investment.ʼn There is evidence of skill upgrading induced either by technology imports or by trade-induced reallocations of market shares in favor of plants with higher skill-intensity.ʼn There is no evidence of trade-induced increases in labor demand elasticities. But direct evidence suggests that trade exposure raises wage volatility.ʼn There is no evidence of substantial employment contraction in import-competing sectors.This paper - a product of Trade, Development Research Group - is part of a larger effort in the group to assess the impact of trade and investment liberalization in developing countries.

Trade Liberalization, Firm Performance and Labour Market Outcomes in the Developing World. What Can We Learn from Micro-Level Data?

Trade Liberalization, Firm Performance and Labour Market Outcomes in the Developing World. What Can We Learn from Micro-Level Data?
Author: Paolo Epifani
Publisher:
Total Pages: 0
Release: 2014
Genre:
ISBN:

We review the micro-level evidence on the effects of trade and investment liberalization in the developing world. We focus, in particular, on the effects of the 1991 trade reform in India, since it provides an excellent controlled experiment in which the effects of a drastic trade regime change can be measured. The main findings can be summarized as follows. 1) There is evidence of trade-induced productivity gains (in this respect, however, India is something of an exception); 2) These gains mainly stem from the intra-industry reallocation of resources among firms with different productivity levels and: 3) they are larger in import competing sectors; 4) There is no evidence of significant scale efficiency gains. Indeed, unilateral trade liberalization is often associated with a reduced scale efficiency; 5) There is evidence of a pro-competitive effect of trade liberalization; 6) There is no evidence either of learning-by-exporting effects or of beneficial spillover effects from foreign owned to local firms; 7) There is evidence of skill upgrading induced either by technology imports, or by trade-induced reallocations of market shares in favor of plants with higher skill-intensity; 8) There is no evidence of trade-induced increases in labor demand elasticities. Direct evidence suggests, however, that trade exposure raises wage volatility; 9) There is no evidence of substantial employment contraction in import competing sectors.

Trade Liberalization and Poverty

Trade Liberalization and Poverty
Author: Neil McCulloch
Publisher: Centre for Economic Policy Research
Total Pages: 436
Release: 2001
Genre: Business & Economics
ISBN: 9781898128625

Openness to trade is a key element of economic policy; continuing extreme poverty in developing countries is a disgrace. This Handbook examines how concerns about the world's poor should affect our attitude towards trade liberalization. Part I draws on economic analysis and practical experience to construct a framework to analyse the links between trade liberalization and poverty. It shows policy-makers how to identify the critical features in their economies so they can ensure that the poor benefit from liberalization. Part II explores the reform of particular sectors -- agriculture, services, etc., and particular instruments of trade policy -- export subsidies, anti-dumping measures, etc. It presents an economic analysis of each type of reform, shows the likely outcome for the poor, and discusses the issue's status on the World Trade Organization's agenda. Book jacket.

A Decade of Development Thinking

A Decade of Development Thinking
Author: Carmen Pagés
Publisher: Inter-American Development Bank
Total Pages: 72
Release: 2004-12-10
Genre: Business & Economics
ISBN:

The Research Department of the IDB (RES) performs innovative, comparative research on the development issues of greatest concern to the region today. It generates a wide variety of products based on this research and disseminates them to three principal audiences: the Bank, policymakers and the academic community. To commemorate its first decade of research, RES compiled a selection of the department's ten most influential papers, published through the Latin American Development Forum, a joint publications venture among the Economic Commission for Latin America and the Caribbean (ECLAC), the IDB, Stanford University Press and the World Bank.

Trade Policy, Industrialization, and Development

Trade Policy, Industrialization, and Development
Author: Gerald K. Helleiner
Publisher:
Total Pages: 344
Release: 1992
Genre: Business & Economics
ISBN:

This book examines the role of trade policy in industrialization. In particular, it investigates the ways in which the characteristics of a developing country's domestic industrial sector--for example, oligopolistic markets, the position of foreign enterprises, or the acquisition of modern technologies--affects its chances of industrializing far enough to engage in substantial export trade.

Essays on the Economic Implications of Globalization

Essays on the Economic Implications of Globalization
Author: Kensuke Suzuki
Publisher:
Total Pages: 0
Release: 2023
Genre:
ISBN:

The broad objective of this dissertation is to understand the economic implications of globalization, with a particular focus on two key aspects: international migration and trade liberalization. The dissertation is comprised of three chapters. In Chapter 1, my coauthor and I examine the impacts of Japan's immigration policy reforms on labor market outcomes and sectoral production across regions. In Chapters 2 and 3, I analyze the effects of China's trade liberalization, specifically its WTO accession in 2001, with a special emphasis on firms' input trade. Chapter 1 examines the impact of immigrant workers on the regional economies of the host country. We focus on Japan, which has expanded the foreign employment in the total workforce over the last three decades in response to the shrinking domestic workforce. We develop a quantitative spatial model to evaluate the gains of foreign employment, i.e., the consequences of an inflow of foreign workers on aggregate welfare, local wages, employment, and production. Our model features three crucial aspects--occupation, region, and sector--that interact with each other to shape the local labor market and production responses to immigration shocks. We quantify the model using the newly available micro-level data on foreign workers and conduct counterfactual exercises to evaluate the past and future immigration policy reforms. We find that in regions where foreign workers tend to gravitate, there was a substantial negative impact on the wages of low-education domestic workers. At a nationwide level, there is a minimal gain of social welfare. We argue that these results suggest that the Japanese labor market is segmented spatially, particularly for low-education workers. We also highlight the importance of the sectoral dimension in understanding the impact of foreign workers. Specifically, the skewed occupational distribution of foreign workers has pronounced implications on sectors that are intensive in occupations with a larger proportion of foreign workers and sectoral input-output linkage plays a key role in determining the regional impacts. Chapter 2 investigates the decision of firms to import intermediate inputs and their impact on firm performance. Previous research in development economics and international trade has highlighted the benefits of imported inputs for firms, including lower marginal cost of production and positive productivity implications from, e.g., interaction with foreign suppliers. Using Chinese firm-level data from the early 2000s, when trade liberalization occurred, I develop a dynamic structural model of a firm's importing decision that captures both static and dynamic benefits of using imported inputs. I estimate the firm's production function while controlling for unobserved productivity and confirms that the marginal cost of production decreases when using imported inputs (i.e., Ethier's love-of-variety effect), and their use has positive impacts on future productivity. By using the estimated model, I show that subsidizing the fixed cost of importing is more effective in increasing the overall import participation rate than subsidizing the startup sunk cost of importing. Chapter 3 examines the impact of trade liberalization on a firm's intermediate imports and aggregate outcomes, with a focus on heterogeneous impacts across locations within a country. I use Chinese firm-level data covering the period of China's trade reforms following its WTO accession in 2001 and finds that coastal firms, despite their geographic advantage in international trade, are less likely to import, use fewer imports, and spend less on imported inputs than inland firms on average. I also find evidence that coastal firms are less likely to import because domestic inputs are more available than in the inland region. To explain these findings, I develop a spatial general equilibrium model of a firm's input trade, which features multiple regions in a country, endogenous market size, and firm selection. I find that a reduction in international trade costs increases market size and the number of active firms in the coastal region, making the domestic input bundle relatively cheaper. As a result, the model replicates the empirical regularities that coastal firms are less likely to import and use fewer imports than inland firms.