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Trade and Labor Market Outcomes

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  • Elhanan Helpman
  • Oleg Itskhoki
  • Stephen Redding

Abstract

This paper reviews a new framework for analyzing the interrelationship between inequality, unemployment, labor market frictions, and foreign trade. This framework emphasizes firm heterogeneity and search and matching frictions in labor markets. It implies that the opening of trade may raise inequality and unemployment, but always raises welfare. Unilateral reductions in labor market frictions increase a country's welfare, can raise or reduce its unemployment rate, yet always hurt the country's trade partner. Unemployment benefits can alleviate the distortions in a country's labor market in some cases but not in others, but they can never implement the constrained Pareto optimal allocation. We characterize the set of optimal policies, which require interventions in product and labor markets.

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Paper provided by National Bureau of Economic Research, Inc in its series NBER Working Papers with number 16662.

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Date of creation: Jan 2011
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Handle: RePEc:nbr:nberwo:16662

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  1. Naércio Aquino Menezes Filho & Marc-Andreas Muendler & Garey Ramey, 2006. "The Structure of Worker Compensation in Brazil, with a Comparison to France and the United States," CESifo Working Paper Series 1643, CESifo Group Munich.
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  6. Donald R. Davis & James Harrigan, 2007. "Good jobs, bad jobs, and trade liberalization," Discussion Papers 0607-07, Columbia University, Department of Economics.
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Cited by:
  1. Martins, Pedro S. & Opromolla, Luca David, 2011. "Why Ex(Im)porters Pay More: Evidence from Matched Firm-Worker Panels," IZA Discussion Papers 6013, Institute for the Study of Labor (IZA).
  2. Swati Dhingra & John Morrow, 2012. "The Impact of Integration on Productivity and Welfare Distortions Under Monopolistic Competition," CEP Discussion Papers dp1130, Centre for Economic Performance, LSE.
  3. Ulrich Zierahn, 2012. "Monocentric Cities, Endogenous Agglomeration, and Unemployment Disparities," MAGKS Papers on Economics 201238, Philipps-Universität Marburg, Faculty of Business Administration and Economics, Department of Economics (Volkswirtschaftliche Abteilung).
  4. Zierahn, Ulrich, 2011. "Agglomeration, congestion, and regional unemployment disparities," HWWI Research Papers 108, Hamburg Institute of International Economics (HWWI).
  5. Chinhui Juhn & Gergely Ujhelyi & Carolina Villegas-Sanchez, 2012. "Men, Women, and Machines: How Trade Impacts Gender Inequality," NBER Working Papers 18106, National Bureau of Economic Research, Inc.
  6. Pflüger, Michael P. & Russek, Stephan, 2010. "Trade and Industrial Policies with Heterogeneous Firms: The Role of Country Asymmetries," IZA Discussion Papers 5387, Institute for the Study of Labor (IZA).

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