IDEAS home Printed from https://ideas.repec.org/a/oup/wbrobs/v18y2003i2p159-186.html
   My bibliography  Save this article

Globalization and the Labor Market

Author

Listed:
  • MartÌn Rama

Abstract

Does globalization affect labor market outcomes? Can labor market policies mitigate or offset the effects? Would these policies have important side effects on efficiency? This article addresses these questions through an analytical survey of the literature, including several studies under preparation. Some of the studies use new cross-country databases of wages and other labor market indicators. Although all the answers should be considered tentative, some patterns emerge. Different aspects of globalization have different consequences. In the short run wages fall with openness to trade and rise with foreign direct investment. But after a few years the effect of trade on wages becomes positive. Foreign direct investment also increases (substantially) the returns to education. Social protection programs are effective in reducing inequality. Minimum wages, public sector employment, and core labor standards are not. Between these two extremes, collective bargaining works mainly for the middle class. Social protection programs do not adversely affect efficiency, but high public sector employment and trade union membership are associated with weaker performance in the context of adjustment. Copyright 2003, Oxford University Press.

Suggested Citation

  • MartÌn Rama, 2003. "Globalization and the Labor Market," The World Bank Research Observer, World Bank, vol. 18(2), pages 159-186.
    • Handle: RePEc:oup:wbrobs:v:18:y:2003:i:2:p:159-186
    as

    Download full text from publisher

    To our knowledge, this item is not available for download. To find whether it is available, there are three options:
    1. Check below whether another version of this item is available online.
    2. Check on the provider's web page whether it is in fact available.
    3. Perform a search for a similarly titled item that would be available.

    Citations

    Citations are extracted by the CitEc Project, subscribe to its RSS feed for this item.
    as


    Cited by:

    1. Neil Foster, 2012. "Offshoring and Labour Markets," FIW Specials series 003, FIW.
    2. Petia Topalova, 2007. "Trade Liberalization, Poverty and Inequality: Evidence from Indian Districts," NBER Chapters, in: Globalization and Poverty, pages 291-336, National Bureau of Economic Research, Inc.
    3. Mari Kangasniemi & Jukka Pirttilä, 2013. "Trade unions in the south and co-operation between unions in the South and in the North: A survey of the economics literature," Working Papers 285, Työn ja talouden tutkimus LABORE, The Labour Institute for Economic Research LABORE.
    4. Pierre, Gaelle & Scarpetta, Stefano, 2004. "Employment regulations through the eyes of employers - do they matter and how do firms respond to them?," Policy Research Working Paper Series 3463, The World Bank.
    5. Matthias Busse & Carsten Hefeker, 2009. "Trade, labour market regulations and growth," Applied Economics Letters, Taylor & Francis Journals, vol. 16(8), pages 809-812.
    6. Novella Bottini & Michael Gasiorek, 2009. "Trade and Job Reallocation: Evidence for Morocco," Working Papers 492, Economic Research Forum, revised Jun 2009.
    7. Alexandre SIMONS, 2014. "Delocation, home wages and welfare," LIDAM Discussion Papers IRES 2014007, Université catholique de Louvain, Institut de Recherches Economiques et Sociales (IRES).
    8. Kevin A. Hassett & Aparna Mathur, 2015. "A spatial model of corporate tax incidence," Applied Economics, Taylor & Francis Journals, vol. 47(13), pages 1350-1365, March.
    9. Petia Topalova, 2010. "Factor Immobility and Regional Impacts of Trade Liberalization: Evidence on Poverty from India," American Economic Journal: Applied Economics, American Economic Association, vol. 2(4), pages 1-41, October.
    10. Kim, Il-Ho & Muntaner, Carles & Vahid Shahidi, Faraz & Vives, Alejandra & Vanroelen, Christophe & Benach, Joan, 2012. "Welfare states, flexible employment, and health: A critical review," Health Policy, Elsevier, vol. 104(2), pages 99-127.
    11. Halit Yanikkaya, 2013. "Is trade liberalization a solution to the unemployment problem?," Portuguese Economic Journal, Springer;Instituto Superior de Economia e Gestao, vol. 12(1), pages 57-85, April.
    12. José Alemán, 2008. "Labor Market Deregulation and Industrial Conflict in New Democracies: A Cross‐National Analysis," Political Studies, Political Studies Association, vol. 56(4), pages 830-856, December.
    13. Wang, Danny T. & Gu, Flora F. & Tse, David K. & Yim, Chi Kin (Bennett), 2013. "When does FDI matter? The roles of local institutions and ethnic origins of FDI," International Business Review, Elsevier, vol. 22(2), pages 450-465.
    14. repec:dau:papers:123456789/3202 is not listed on IDEAS
    15. Bernard Hoekman & Alan L. Winters, 2005. "Trade and Employment: Stylized Facts and Research Findings," Working Papers 7, United Nations, Department of Economics and Social Affairs.
    16. Pillai, Rajasekharan, 2010. "Labour Market Structure: A Brief Literature Survey," MPRA Paper 27479, University Library of Munich, Germany.
    17. Goyal, Ashima, 2005. "New technology and labour Markets: Entrants, outsourcing and matching," MPRA Paper 24620, University Library of Munich, Germany.

    More about this item

    Statistics

    Access and download statistics

    Corrections

    All material on this site has been provided by the respective publishers and authors. You can help correct errors and omissions. When requesting a correction, please mention this item's handle: RePEc:oup:wbrobs:v:18:y:2003:i:2:p:159-186. See general information about how to correct material in RePEc.

    If you have authored this item and are not yet registered with RePEc, we encourage you to do it here. This allows to link your profile to this item. It also allows you to accept potential citations to this item that we are uncertain about.

    We have no bibliographic references for this item. You can help adding them by using this form .

    If you know of missing items citing this one, you can help us creating those links by adding the relevant references in the same way as above, for each refering item. If you are a registered author of this item, you may also want to check the "citations" tab in your RePEc Author Service profile, as there may be some citations waiting for confirmation.

    For technical questions regarding this item, or to correct its authors, title, abstract, bibliographic or download information, contact: Oxford University Press (email available below). General contact details of provider: https://edirc.repec.org/data/wrldbus.html .

    Please note that corrections may take a couple of weeks to filter through the various RePEc services.

    IDEAS is a RePEc service. RePEc uses bibliographic data supplied by the respective publishers.