International Trade and Unemployment – the Worker-Selection Effect

This paper analyzes how trade liberalization influences the unemploy- ment rate of workers with di¤erent abilities. We refine the Melitz (2003) framework to account for trade unions and heterogeneous workers, who di¤er with respect to their abilities. Our main findings are: (i) high- ability wor...

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Bibliographic Details
Published in:MAGKS - Joint Discussion Paper Series in Economics (Band 27-2011)
Main Authors: de Pinto, Marco, Michaelis, Jochen
Format: Work
Language:English
Published: 2011
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Online Access:PDF Full Text
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Summary:This paper analyzes how trade liberalization influences the unemploy- ment rate of workers with di¤erent abilities. We refine the Melitz (2003) framework to account for trade unions and heterogeneous workers, who di¤er with respect to their abilities. Our main findings are: (i) high- ability workers profit from trade liberalization in terms of higher wages and higher employment; (ii) the least efficient workers loose their job and switch to long-term unemployment (worker-selection effect); (iii) if a country is endowed with a large fraction of low-skilled workers, trade lib- eralization leads to a rise in aggregate unemployment. In this case, trade liberalization may harm a country's welfare.
Physical Description:32 Pages
ISSN:1867-3678
DOI:10.17192/es2024.0093