IDEAS home Printed from https://ideas.repec.org/p/iza/izadps/dp16671.html
   My bibliography  Save this paper

Does Turnover Inhibit Specialization? Evidence from a Skill Survey in Peru

Author

Listed:
  • Atencio-De-Leon, Andrea

    (International Monetary Fund)

  • Lee, Munseob

    (University of California, San Diego)

  • Macaluso, Claudia

    (Federal Reserve Bank of Richmond)

Abstract

We design, pilot, and field a new survey of occupational skills in Peru, to investigate human capital differences between poor and rich countries. Though the average skill level is comparable, Peruvian jobs have markedly more uniform skill profiles than jobs in the US. However, matching frictions are no more severe than in the US, and recruiting technology is largely equivalent as well. A model with complementarities in production offers a plausible explanation. Uncertainty about labor availability, more pronounced in poor countries' turbulent labor markets, destabilizes production. This generates an endogenous labor demand preference for unspecialized workers.

Suggested Citation

  • Atencio-De-Leon, Andrea & Lee, Munseob & Macaluso, Claudia, 2023. "Does Turnover Inhibit Specialization? Evidence from a Skill Survey in Peru," IZA Discussion Papers 16671, Institute of Labor Economics (IZA).
    • Handle: RePEc:iza:izadps:dp16671
    as

    Download full text from publisher

    File URL: https://docs.iza.org/dp16671.pdf
    Download Restriction: no
    ---><---

    References listed on IDEAS

    as
    1. Anne O. Krueger, 1983. "Trade and Employment in Developing Countries, Volume 3: Synthesis and Conclusions," NBER Books, National Bureau of Economic Research, Inc, number krue83-1, March.
    2. Anne O. Krueger, 1983. "Trade and Employment in Less Developed Countries: The Questions," NBER Chapters, in: Trade and Employment in Developing Countries, Volume 3: Synthesis and Conclusions, pages 1-9, National Bureau of Economic Research, Inc.
    Full references (including those not matched with items on IDEAS)

    Most related items

    These are the items that most often cite the same works as this one and are cited by the same works as this one.
    1. Julien Gourdon, 2011. "Wage inequality in developing countries: South–South trade matters," International Review of Economics, Springer;Happiness Economics and Interpersonal Relations (HEIRS), vol. 58(4), pages 359-383, December.
    2. Sebastian Edwards & Thomas O. Enders & Jesus Silva-Herzog, 1988. "The United States and Foreign Competition in Latin America," NBER Chapters, in: The United States in the World Economy, pages 9-77, National Bureau of Economic Research, Inc.
    3. Gérard Grellet, 1988. "Stratégies d'industrialisation pour l'Afrique noire," Revue Tiers Monde, Programme National Persée, vol. 29(115), pages 1007-1019.
    4. repec:unu:wpaper:wp201558 is not listed on IDEAS
    5. repec:unu:wpaper:wp2015-58 is not listed on IDEAS
    6. Jorge Saba Arbache, 2001. "Trade Liberalisation and Labor Markets in Developing Countries: Theory and Evidence," Studies in Economics 0112, School of Economics, University of Kent.
    7. Edward Tower, 1986. "Industrial Policy In Less Developed Countries," Contemporary Economic Policy, Western Economic Association International, vol. 4(1), pages 23-35, January.
    8. José Gabriel Palma, 2014. "Has the income share of the middle and upper-middle been stable over time, or is its current homogeneity across the world the outcome of a process of convergence? The 'Palma Ratio' revisited," Cambridge Working Papers in Economics 1437, Faculty of Economics, University of Cambridge.
    9. D. M. Nachane & Prasad Ranade, 1998. "India's trade balance in the 1980s an econometric analysis," Applied Economics, Taylor & Francis Journals, vol. 30(6), pages 761-774.
    10. Chong‐Hyun Nam, 2008. "Does Trade Expansion Still Promote Employment in Korea?," The World Economy, Wiley Blackwell, vol. 31(6), pages 720-737, June.
    11. Tony Addison & Finn Tarp, 2015. "Lessons for Japanese foreign aid from research on aid's impact," WIDER Working Paper Series 058, World Institute for Development Economic Research (UNU-WIDER).
    12. Onaran, Özlem & Stockhammer, Engelbert, 2006. "The effect of FDI and foreign trade on wages in the Central and Eastern European Countries in the post-transition era: A sectoral analysis," Department of Economics Working Paper Series 94, WU Vienna University of Economics and Business.
    13. José Gabriel Palma, 2014. "Has the Income Share of the Middle and Upper-middle Been Stable around the ‘50/50 Rule’, or Has it Converged towards that Level? The ‘Palma Ratio’ Revisited," Development and Change, International Institute of Social Studies, vol. 45(6), pages 1416-1448, November.
    14. Xiaoling Shu & Yifei Zhu & Zhanxin Zhang, 2007. "Global Economy and Gender Inequalities: The Case of the Urban Chinese Labor Market," Social Science Quarterly, Southwestern Social Science Association, vol. 88(5), pages 1307-1332, December.
    15. D. Sirin Saracoglu, 2009. "Adjustment under trade liberalization, labor market segmentation, and informal employment: A dynamic general equilibrium analysis of a three-sector-open economy," 2009 Meeting Papers 629, Society for Economic Dynamics.
    16. Whitten, Greg, 2014. "Sector-specific bilateral trade and currency unions," Conference papers 332544, Purdue University, Center for Global Trade Analysis, Global Trade Analysis Project.
    17. Rajah Rasiah & Johannes Dragsbaek Schmidt, 2010. "Introduction," Chapters, in: Rajah Rasiah & Johannes Dragsbaek Schmidt (ed.), The New Political Economy of Southeast Asia, chapter 1, Edward Elgar Publishing.
    18. Martins, Ana Paula, 2014. "The Mechanics of Dualistic Models: "Comparable" Structures and Comparative Statics Results," EconStor Open Access Articles and Book Chapters, ZBW - Leibniz Information Centre for Economics, vol. 1(2), pages 150-185.
    19. Dani Rodrik, 1993. "Trade and Industrial Policy Reform in Developing Countries: A Review of Recent Theory and Evidence," NBER Working Papers 4417, National Bureau of Economic Research, Inc.
    20. Sebastian Edwards, 1989. "Debt Crisis, Trade Liberalization, Structural Adjustment, And Growth: Some Policy Considerations," Contemporary Economic Policy, Western Economic Association International, vol. 7(3), pages 30-41, July.
    21. Jon Jonakin, 2009. "Labour and Its Discontents: The Consequences of Orthodox Reform in Venezuela and Mexico," Journal of Development Studies, Taylor & Francis Journals, vol. 45(8), pages 1284-1306.
    22. Justin Yifu Lin & Pengfei Zhang, 2007. "Development Strategy and Economic Institutions in Less Developed Countries," CID Working Papers 17, Center for International Development at Harvard University.

    More about this item

    Keywords

    cross-country productivity differences; human capital; labor reallocation;
    All these keywords.

    JEL classification:

    • E24 - Macroeconomics and Monetary Economics - - Consumption, Saving, Production, Employment, and Investment - - - Employment; Unemployment; Wages; Intergenerational Income Distribution; Aggregate Human Capital; Aggregate Labor Productivity
    • O11 - Economic Development, Innovation, Technological Change, and Growth - - Economic Development - - - Macroeconomic Analyses of Economic Development
    • O47 - Economic Development, Innovation, Technological Change, and Growth - - Economic Growth and Aggregate Productivity - - - Empirical Studies of Economic Growth; Aggregate Productivity; Cross-Country Output Convergence

    NEP fields

    This paper has been announced in the following NEP Reports:

    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:iza:izadps:dp16671. 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.

    If CitEc recognized a bibliographic reference but did not link an item in RePEc to it, you can help with 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: Holger Hinte (email available below). General contact details of provider: https://edirc.repec.org/data/izaaade.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.