The long-run effects of the real exchange rate on employment and wages in Canadian manufacturing

ABSTRACT

The literature on real exchange rate effects on the labour market is dominated by short-run analysis showing that there is heterogeneity in the responses of firms or industries to a real exchange rate shock. Analysing data on Canadian manufacturing industries, I conclude that there is a common long-run equilibrium across all manufacturing industries controlling for their openness to trade after varying adjustments to a real exchange rate shock have taken place. This conclusion is important from the perspective of policy making because it helps to form expectations about the effects of a real exchange rate movement on the labour market. The results suggest that real appreciation leads to economically significant reductions in employment in manufacturing in the long run. Real wages decrease in industries that are highly engaged in international trade and somewhat increase in industries that are relatively closed to international trade. Both employment and real wages converge quickly to the long-run equilibrium.     

Province-Level Impacts of Canada’s Trade Agreements

Given Canada’s extended geography and regional economic diversity, individual provinces have differing exposures to particular international trade agreements. We demonstrate this by estimating the impacts of the Canada-Korea free trade agreement on the province of Ontario, using a dynamic general equilibrium model to generate Canada-level impacts, which are then decomposed on the basis of partial equilibrium model simulations on a trade dataset in which Ontario is represented as a separate international trading entity. We show that geography and sectoral specialization matter and that general equilibrium effects must be taken into account in partial equilibrium assessments of sectoral impacts of major trade agreements.     

Moldova's internet revolution: Analyzing the role of technologies in various phases of the confrontation

In recent times we have witnessed the fundamental impacts that information and communication technologies (ICTs) have had on the outcomes of contentious political confrontations. In this paper, we analyze the role played by Internet-based and cellular ICTs in Moldova's Revolution of April 2009. Specifically, we identify what, why, and how technologies were used during various phases of the uprising. Our findings show that: 1) the protesters organized their initial mobilization through social network services (SNS) and short message service (SMS); 2) Twitter was mostly used during later phases of the revolution – the active street protests and the subsequent information war – for communication about the conflict both locally and globally; and 3) through skillful use of new Internet-based ICTs, it is possible to conduct a successful revolution without noticeable prior offline organization. Theoretical and practical implications for the use of ICTs in contentious political environments are also discussed.