Workers and Trade Liberalization: The Impact of Trade Reforms in Mexico on Wages and Employment

ILR Review ◽  
2001 ◽  
Vol 55 (1) ◽  
pp. 95-115 ◽  
Author(s):  
Zadia M. Feliciano
Keyword(s):  
Trade Liberalization ◽  
Wage Inequality ◽  
Trade Reform ◽  
Trade Reforms ◽  
Relative Wages ◽  
Relative Employment ◽  
Level Data ◽  
Mexican Government ◽  
Micro Level ◽  
The Impact

Between 1986 and 1990, the Mexican government reduced tariffs and import license coverage by more than 50%. The author, using micro-level data, analyzes the impact of trade reform on Mexican wages and employment. Industries that had greater reductions in protection levels, she finds, had a larger percentage of low-skill workers. Wage dispersion increased in both the non-tradables sector and, to a much greater degree, the tradables sector. This pattern suggests that trade reform increased wage inequality. The decline in import license coverage appears to have reduced relative wages of workers in reformed industries by 2%, but did not affect relative employment. Reductions in tariffs had no statistically significant effect on relative wages or relative employment.

Organizational Form and Trade Liberalization: Plant-Level Evidence

2021 ◽  
Author(s):  
John (Jianqiu) Bai
Keyword(s):  
Trade Liberalization ◽  
Core Competency ◽  
Extensive Margin ◽  
Trade Policies ◽  
Trade Shocks ◽  
Internal Organization ◽  
Level Data ◽  
Plant Level ◽  
The Impact ◽  
Aggregate Industry

This paper studies how firms’ internal organization shapes the impact of international trade. Using establishment-level data from the U.S. Census and a difference-in-difference specification, I find that, relative to standalone firms, conglomerates are more likely to restructure after trade liberalization episodes, focusing on their core competency and improving firm productivity and product market performance. Adjustments through the extensive margin account for the majority of the productivity growth differential between conglomerates and standalones experiencing trade shocks. Aggregate industry productivity remains relatively unchanged in industries dominated by conglomerates’ core business but decreases significantly in others. My findings suggest that firms’ internal organization has important consequences on the effects of trade policies. This paper was accepted by Gustavo Manso, finance.

The Analysis of Conflict: A Micro-Level Perspective

2009 ◽  
Vol 46 (3) ◽  
pp. 307-314 ◽  
Author(s):  
Philip Verwimp ◽  
Patricia Justino ◽  
Tilman Brück
Keyword(s):  
Global Perspective ◽  
Special Issue ◽  
Civilian Population ◽  
Country Level ◽  
Policy Interventions ◽  
Level Data ◽  
Micro Level ◽  
The Impact ◽  
Core Message ◽  
Armed Actors

This article introduces a special issue on the micro-level dynamics of mass violent conflict. While most analyses of conflict typically adopt a regional, national or global perspective, often using country-level data, this special issue takes an explicit micro-level approach, focusing on the behaviour and welfare of individuals, households and groups or communities. At a fundamental level, conflict originates from individuals' behaviour and their repeated interactions with their surroundings, in other words, from its micro-foundations. A micro-level approach advances our understanding of conflict by its ability to account for individual and group heterogeneity within one country or one conflict. The contributors to this special issue investigate the nature of violence against civilians, the agency of civilians during conflict, the strategic interaction between civilians and armed actors, the consequences of displacement, the effectiveness of coping strategies and the impact of policy interventions. The core message from these articles is that in order to understand conflict dynamics and its effects on society, we have to take seriously the incentives and constraints shaping the interaction between the civilian population and the armed actors. The kind of interaction that develops, as well as the resulting conflict dynamics, depend on the type of conflict, the type of armed actors and the characteristics of the civilian population and its institutions.

Trade reform and environmental externalities in general equilibrium: analysis for an archetype poor tropical country

2000 ◽  
Vol 5 (4) ◽  
pp. 377-404 ◽  
Author(s):  
RAMÓN LÓPEZ
Keyword(s):  
General Equilibrium ◽  
Trade Liberalization ◽  
Agricultural Productivity ◽  
Equilibrium Analysis ◽  
Tropical Country ◽  
Trade Reform ◽  
General Equilibrium Analysis ◽  
Export Taxes ◽  
Biomass Resources ◽  
The Impact

This paper provides a conceptual and empirical general equilibrium framework for the analysis of the impact of trade reform on welfare and the environment. The analysis is applied to Côte d'Ivoire explicitly considering externalities affecting biomass (natural vegetation), which is shown to be an important factor determining agricultural productivity.The simulation general equilibrium analysis shows that the agricultural output composition effect dominates the agricultural expansion effect for the case of complete trade liberalization. Thus, in this case trade liberalization causes a significant improvement in the rural biomass stock by cutting land area cultivated, increases agricultural productivity, and induces dramatic welfare gains. That is, trade liberalization is a win–win type of policy in this case. However, partial trade liberalization that only reduces protection to non-agricultural goods (and does not reduce tariffs to agricultural import substitutes and does not reduce export taxes) causes a further deterioration of the biomass resources and reduces welfare.

scholarly journals Trade liberalization and firm-level productivity: A panel data analysis of the Indian iron-steel industry

2018 ◽  
Vol 63 (219) ◽  
pp. 7-32
Author(s):  
Sanjay Mangla
Keyword(s):  
Trade Liberalization ◽  
Steel Industry ◽  
Panel Data Analysis ◽  
Steel Production ◽  
Firm Level ◽  
Production Factors ◽  
Level Data ◽  
Reform Period ◽  
Protection Rate ◽  
The Impact

The iron-steel industry in India contributes about 3% of gross domestic product and provides employment for more than half a million people. However, although steel production in India has increased at a trend growth rate of 7.83% during the post-reform period between 1991-1992 and 2012-2013, this does not necessarily indicate efficient utilization of production factors, as it can also result from a higher level of inputs. Therefore, it is important to record productivity growth and identify its determinants. This study estimates total factor productivity (from firm-level data) in the Indian iron-steel industry and examines the impact of trade liberalization (measured as decline in input tariffs, output tariffs, and effective protection rate) on productivity during the abovementioned period.

Do trade reforms affect changes in patterns of comparative advantage?

2016 ◽  
Vol 20 (3) ◽  
pp. 281-296
Author(s):  
Namsuk Choi
Keyword(s):  
Trade Liberalization ◽  
Comparative Advantage ◽  
Time Series Data ◽  
Poor Country ◽  
Export Performance ◽  
Series Data ◽  
Trade Reform ◽  
Content Type ◽  
Trade Reforms

Purpose The purpose of this paper is to examine the effects of foreign trade liberalization and trade reforms on the process of structural upgrading, and explore the extent to which they provide impetus for exports. Design/methodology/approach This paper accounts for trade liberalization dates, cumulative years in open regime, and the density of 1,006 products in the patterns of comparative advantage for 132 countries from 1975 to 2000. The effects of trade liberalizations and trade reforms in open regime on future export performance are estimated by using various empirical strategies. Findings This paper finds that the speed of moving from simple poor-country goods to rich-country goods in export depends not only on having a route to nearby goods of increasingly higher value, but also on the increase in the cumulative years in open regime. In particular, a 1 percent change in the relatedness across products with trade reform in open regime increases the probability of exporting a new product by 2.0 percent more. Originality/value A contribution of this paper is that it measures the extent to which trade reform in open regime affects the evolution of comparative advantage, even after taking account of the role of relatedness of exported products as in the Hausmann and Klinger (2006, 2007). In this paper, empirical findings of a comprehensive product level cross-country time-series data analysis may contribute to generalize the role of trade reform on structural upgrading not only for a pro-competitive export country like Korea but also for a typical developing country.

The Impact of Digital File Sharing on the Music Industry: An Empirical Analysis

2006 ◽  
Vol 6 (1) ◽  
Author(s):  
Norbert J Michel
Keyword(s):  
Music Industry ◽  
File Sharing ◽  
Consumer Expenditure ◽  
Household Level ◽  
Consumer Expenditure Survey ◽  
Expenditure Survey ◽  
Level Data ◽  
Digital File ◽  
Micro Level ◽  
The Impact

Abstract The first file-sharing software, Napster, was shut down in 2001, but the copying technology’s impact on the music industry is still passionately debated. This paper uses micro-level data from the Consumer Expenditure Survey to examine the impact of Internet file sharing on music sales. Music industry representatives argue that the practice decreases CD sales, while supporters of file-sharing allege the practice could actually increase sales. Using household-level data from the Consumer Expenditure Survey, we find support for the claim that file-sharing has decreased sales.

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