Labour market institutions,learning and self-employment

We develop a dynamic partial-equilibrium model to analyse how labour market institutions (wage compression, minimum wages, unemployment benefits, mobility costs and fixed-costs of self-employment) and learning affect who and when people become self-employed. We find that certain ability groups of workers become self-employed for both “carrot” and “stick” reasons: Some prefer self-employment to the low institutionalised wage, while others are not productive enough to qualify for a job at the institutionalised wage. Furthermore, wage compression and learning may give rise to a class of switchers who start in wage employment and later switch to self-employment. Several predictions of the model are consistent with observed empirical regularities, such as the existence of a group of low-skilled self-employed workers, the increasing propensity for self-employment over age groups and the larger spread in earnings among self-employed.     

Inefficient trade patterns: Excessive trade, cross-hauling and dumping

I study an example of a competitive environment in which trade occurs in a sequential manner. In this example, a country with a stable demand may suffer from trade with a country with unstable demand, there may be too much trade, a country may import and export the same good in the same period (cross-hauling) and dumping may occur. The timing of delivery is important. When delivery occurs before trade (delivery to stocks), trade improves welfare, there is dumping but no cross-hauling. When delivery occurs after trade (delivery to order), trade may reduce welfare and cross-hauling may occur.     

Credit constraints, equity market liberalizations and international trade

This paper provides evidence that credit constraints are an important determinant of international trade flows. I exploit shocks to the availability of external finance and examine the impact of equity market liberalizations on the export behavior of 91 countries in the 1980-1997 period. I show that liberalizations increase exports disproportionately more in financially vulnerable sectors that require more outside finance or employ fewer collateralizable assets. This result is not driven by cross-country differences in factor endowments and is independent of simultaneous trade policy reforms. Moreover, it obtains with equal strength in the full panel of countries as well as in both panel and event-study analyses of countries which removed capital controls during the sample period. Finally, the effects of liberalizations are more pronounced in economies with initially less active stock markets, indicating that foreign equity flows may substitute for an underdeveloped domestic financial system. Similarly, opening equity markets has a greater impact in the presence of higher trade costs caused by restrictive trade policies.     

Diversification cones, trade costs and factor market linkages

This paper finds non-uniform differences in the distribution functions of factor usage intensities among 10 rich OECD countries. The 10 countries form three distinct groups such that the between-group differences are more pronounced than within-group differences and capital-abundant countries are in capital-abundant groups. The estimation works even if the same industry codes represent different goods across countries in the data. The finding is consistent with the multiple-cone factor proportions theory with zero trade costs with each group being one cone. An alternative interpretation is non-zero trade costs. Both interpretations imply weak factor market linkages between the countries in different groups.     

Per capita income,market access costs,and trade volumes

There is strong empirical evidence that countries with lower per capita income tend to have smaller trade volumes even after controlling for aggregate income. Furthermore, poorer countries do not just trade less, but have a lower number of trading partners. In this paper, I construct and estimate a general equilibrium model of trade that captures both these features of the trade data. The key element of the model is an association between trade costs (both variable and fixed) and countries' development levels, which can account for the effect of per capita income on trade volumes and explain many zeros in bilateral trade flows. I find that market access costs play an important role in fitting the model to the data. In a counterfactual analysis, I find that removing the asymmetries in trade costs raises welfare in all countries with an average percentage change equal to 29% and larger gains for smaller and poorer countries. Real income inequality falls by 43%.     

Understanding interstate trade patterns

This paper models and estimates bilateral trade patterns of U.S. states in a CES framework and identifies the elasticity of substitution across goods, the elasticities of substitution across varieties of each good, and the good-specific elasticities of distance by using markup values obtained from the production side. Compared to the international trade literature, the elasticity of substitution estimates are lower across both goods and varieties, while the elasticity of distance estimates are higher. Although home-bias effects at the state level are significant, there is evidence for decreasing effects over time.     

Labor demand and trade reform in Latin America

Trade liberalization is thought to result in higher own-wage elasticities of labor demand, particularly for unskilled labor, with adverse implications for both labor market volatility and wage dispersion. The paper first argues that theoretically the link between liberalization and labor-demand elasticities is less clear than has previously been asserted. It then uses dynamic panel techniques to estimate labor-demand relations for manufacturing establishments in Chile, Colombia, and Mexico across periods of trade policy reform. The results do not strongly support the hypothesis that trade liberalization has a direct impact on own-wage elasticities.     

Foreign market entry mode in the hotel industry: The impact of country- and firm-specific factors

One of the key decisions in the internationalisation process of hotel firms is the choice of the entry mode into a foreign country. Many different factors influence this strategic decision. From a sample of 127 entries carried out by Spanish hotel firms between 2001 and 2003, this study provides new empirical evidence that cultural distance reduces the likelihood of choosing equity entry modes, while firm profitability and internal financial funds availability favour the assumption of greater commitment in the international expansion process.     

Reciprocity and informal institutions in international market entry

This article first identifies two gaps in the literature: (1) the need to expand international market entry research beyond contractual modes of “make, buy, and ally;” and (2) the need to address the imbalance in the institution-based view that has paid inadequate attention to informal institutions. To help close the two gaps, we identify reciprocity—the mutually contingent exchange of gratifications that is supported by informal institutions—to be a non-contractual mode of international market entry. We focus on how informal institutions provide some of the conditions, motivations, and precipitating circumstances behind the use of reciprocity.     

Anonymous market and group ties in international trade

History provides many examples of cohesive groups dispersed over several countries who exploit the ties between their members to gain entry into foreign markets. The phenomenon is well-established empirically and noteworthy because it suggests the importance of informational barriers in international transactions. We present a simple model where output is produced through a joint venture, and agents have complete information domestically but are unable to judge the quality of their match abroad. A minority of individuals, otherwise identical to all others, can exploit complete information in international matches between group members, if they so choose. Group ties increase aggregate trade and income, but hurt the anonymous market because they deprive it disproportionately of the group’s more productive members.     

Unemployment and relative labor market institutions between trading partners

This paper contributes to the literature that highlights the role of trading partners' institutions for a country's unemployment rate. The objective is to study whether the results established in the minimum wage-setting of Davis (1998) hold when unemployment is driven by search frictions. This paper finds that relative labor market institutions matter for equilibrium unemployment as they generate comparative advantages, but there are two main differences with Davis. With North-North trade, unemployment decreases in the low-regulation country. When South is brought into the picture, low-regulation North is not insulated, and unemployment increases in both developed countries as a result of specialization.     

Labor market equilibria under limited liability

This paper explores the impact of limited liability on labor market equilibria. Assuming risk-neutrality, the effect of limited liability on production decisions is neutral. It is demonstrated that neutrality of the production decision will not hold under safety-first type of risk aversion. In particular limited liability generally decreases usage of capital. The changes in the quality of labor depend on the magnitude of complementarity between capital and labor and on whether the output clasticity of labor is greater or less than unity. Hence it is possible for limited liability to decrease the usage of labor and capital and hence reduce output.     

The influence of firm-specific and country-specific advantages in the internationalization of emerging market firms: Evidence from Turkey

This paper examines the role of institutional factors that enable firm- and country-specific drivers of emerging market (EM) firms’ internationalization based on case-based research conducted in one EM, Turkey. Findings indicate that 10 major factors comprised of firm-specific and country-specific advantages drove the focal case study firms abroad: the firm-specific factors ranged from financial and operations supremacy; excellence in value chain activities; inexpensive human resources; rapid learning capabilities in production and technology development; and adaptability to foreign markets; while the country-specific factors included home-government policies supporting internationalization; logistical advantages arising from geographical position; adaptability capabilities resulting from former survival through institutional voids; strong social ties formed through networks; and availability of low cost resources. These findings are discussed and future research questions are offered.     

Productivity, terms of trade and the ‘home market effect’

This paper analyzes the international transmission and welfare implications of productivity gains and changes in market size when macroeconomic adjustment occurs both along the intensive margin of trade (changes in the relative price of existing varieties of tradable goods) and the extensive margin (creation and destruction of varieties). We draw a distinction between productivity gains that enhance manufacturing efficiency and gains that lower the cost of firms' entry and of product differentiation. Countries with lower manufacturing costs have higher GDP but supply their products at lower international prices. Instead, countries with lower entry costs supply a larger array of goods at improved terms of trade. Output growth driven by demographic expansions, as well as government spending, is associated with an improvement in international relative prices and firms' entry. While trade liberalization may result in a smaller array of goods available to consumers, efficiency gains from deeper economic integration benefit consumers via lower goods prices. The international transmission mechanism and the welfare spillovers vary under different asset market structures, depending on trade costs, the elasticity of labor supply, and consumers' taste for varieties.     

Parallel trade with an endogenous market structure

This paper sets up a two‐country model in which there is one domestic manufacturer authorising its product to a distributor in the foreign country. The distributor can sell the product not only to its own market (i.e., the foreign market) but also back to the domestic market. The latter is called parallel trade (PT). The paper investigates the effects of PT on the profits of the manufacturer and social welfare if the domestic market structure is endogenously determined. It is found that PT should be encouraged rather than banned as it increases not only the profits of the manufacturer but also the welfare of both the domestic and the foreign countries.     

International trade and macroeconomic dynamics with labor market frictions

This paper studies how labor market frictions affect the consequences of trade integration in a two-country dynamic stochastic general equilibrium model with heterogeneous firms and endogenous producer entry. Two main results emerge. First, trade integration is beneficial for welfare by inducing higher productivity, but unemployment can temporarily rise during the transitional adjustment. Labor market rigidities reduce gains from trade, even though they can mitigate short-run employment losses. Second, consistent with the data, the model predicts that stronger trade linkages lead to increased business cycle synchronization. The strength of this effect, however, depends on the labor market characteristics of the integrating partners.     

Emerging market hedge funds and the yen carry trade

For emerging market hedge funds, funding through the yen carry trade provides the possibility of enhancing returns by funding in a low coupon currency. This study examines whether emerging market hedge funds are exposed to the value of the Japanese yen and whether this is the key exposure associated with their use of leverage. The results suggest that the returns of these hedge funds are only weakly exposed to yen exchange rate but the use of leverage is associated with yen exposure, which implicates the importance of the yen carry trade.     

Globalization,China's free (read bonded) labour market,and the Chinese trade unions

After two decades of economic reform during which China developed a strong export thrust into the world market, an industrial labour market has taken shape in China. But it is not really a free labour market in that deposits are generally required of workers when they commence employment. For some migrant workers this has led to a condition equivalent to being bonded, which enables Asian foreign investors to establish harsh labour regimes in the factories they manage. The Chinese official trade unions are at a crossroads – do they side with the workers, management or with the party-state?     

Labor market differentials and the expected gain from search

Several recent empirical studies have used the residuals from estimated earnings equations as explanatory variables in models of on-the-job search and quit behavior. It has often been argued that the coefficients on these “market differential” variables are biased downward because estimated residuals overstate the “true” quasi-rent or disincentive to search for alternative employment. This argument—that observed wages include implicit payments for workplace and person-specific characteristics not fully specified in earnings models— ignores an opposing bias associated with the value of being able to reject unattractive wage offers. As a consequence, there is no unambiguous a priori relationship between estimated wage residuals and the theoretical expected gain from search. Some evidence bearing on the relative magnitudes of the two biases is discussed.