IDEAS home Printed from https://ideas.repec.org/a/gam/jadmsc/v14y2024i10p239-d1488430.html

Portuguese Textiles and Apparel Industry: Assessing the Effect of International Trade on Employment and Green Employment

Author

Listed:
  • Vitor Miguel Ribeiro

    (Faculty of Economics, University of Porto, 4200-464 Porto, Portugal)

Abstract

This study examines the impact of international trade activities on employment in the Portuguese textiles and apparel industry from 2010 to 2017. It finds evidence that imports and exports have a persistent, negative, and significant effect on overall job creation, with this impact intensifying over the long-run. Additionally, the increasing elasticity of substitution between imports and exports indicates that private companies of this industry have benefited from a win–win situation characterised by higher production volumes and lower marginal costs. By applying an unsupervised machine-learning method, followed by a discrete choice analysis to infer the firm-level propensity to possess green capital, we identify a phenomenon termed the green international trade paradox . This study also reveals that international trade activities positively influence green job creation in firms lacking green capital if and only if these players are engaged in international markets while negatively affecting firms already endowed with green technologies. As such, empirical results suggest that the export-oriented economic model followed over the last decade by the Portuguese textiles and apparel industry has not necessarily generated new domestic employment opportunities but has significantly altered the magnitude and profile of skill requirements that employers seek to identify in new workforce hires.

Suggested Citation

  • Vitor Miguel Ribeiro, 2024. "Portuguese Textiles and Apparel Industry: Assessing the Effect of International Trade on Employment and Green Employment," Administrative Sciences, MDPI, vol. 14(10), pages 1-66, September.
    • Handle: RePEc:gam:jadmsc:v:14:y:2024:i:10:p:239-:d:1488430
    as

    Download full text from publisher

    File URL: https://www.mdpi.com/2076-3387/14/10/239/pdf
    Download Restriction: no
    File URL: https://www.mdpi.com/2076-3387/14/10/239/
    Download Restriction: no
    ---><---

    References listed on IDEAS

    as
    1. Audretsch, David B., 1995. "Innovation, growth and survival," International Journal of Industrial Organization, Elsevier, vol. 13(4), pages 441-457, December.
    2. Mussa, Michael, 1978. "Dynamic Adjustment in the Heckscher-Ohlin-Samuelson Model," Journal of Political Economy, University of Chicago Press, vol. 86(5), pages 775-791, October.
    3. Martín García Vaquero & Antonio Sánchez-Bayón & José Lominchar, 2021. "European Green Deal and Recovery Plan: Green Jobs, Skills and Wellbeing Economics in Spain," Energies, MDPI, vol. 14(14), pages 1-20, July.
    4. Anthony Goerzen & Christian Geisler Asmussen & Bo Bernhard Nielsen, 2024. "Global cities, the liability of foreignness, and theory on place and space in international business," Journal of International Business Studies, Palgrave Macmillan;Academy of International Business, vol. 55(1), pages 10-27, February.
    5. Evans, David S, 1987. "Tests of Alternative Theories of Firm Growth," Journal of Political Economy, University of Chicago Press, vol. 95(4), pages 657-674, August.
    6. Guo Li & Ming K. Lim & Zhaohua Wang, 2020. "Stakeholders, green manufacturing, and practice performance: empirical evidence from Chinese fashion businesses," Annals of Operations Research, Springer, vol. 290(1), pages 961-982, July.
    7. Robert E. Baldwin, 1995. "The Effects of Trade and Foreign Direct Investment on Employment and Relative Wages," NBER Working Papers 5037, National Bureau of Economic Research, Inc.
    8. Acemoglu, Daron & Autor, David, 2011. "Skills, Tasks and Technologies: Implications for Employment and Earnings," Handbook of Labor Economics, in: O. Ashenfelter & D. Card (ed.), Handbook of Labor Economics, edition 1, volume 4, chapter 12, pages 1043-1171, Elsevier.
    9. Ipek Kazancoglu & Muhittin Sagnak & Sachin Kumar Mangla & Yigit Kazancoglu, 2021. "Circular economy and the policy: A framework for improving the corporate environmental management in supply chains," Business Strategy and the Environment, Wiley Blackwell, vol. 30(1), pages 590-608, January.
    10. Greenaway, David & Hine, Robert C. & Wright, Peter, 1999. "An empirical assessment of the impact of trade on employment in the United Kingdom," European Journal of Political Economy, Elsevier, vol. 15(3), pages 485-500, September.
    11. Francioni, Barbara & Martín Martín, Oscar, 2024. "International market, network, and opportunity selection: A systematic review of empirical research, integrative framework, and comprehensive research agenda," Journal of International Management, Elsevier, vol. 30(5).
    12. James Heckman, 2013. "Sample selection bias as a specification error," Applied Econometrics, Russian Presidential Academy of National Economy and Public Administration (RANEPA), vol. 31(3), pages 129-137.
    13. Denise Reike & Marko P. Hekkert & Simona O. Negro, 2023. "Understanding circular economy transitions: The case of circular textiles," Business Strategy and the Environment, Wiley Blackwell, vol. 32(3), pages 1032-1058, March.
    14. Enrique Moral-Benito & Paul Allison & Richard Williams, 2019. "Dynamic panel data modelling using maximum likelihood: an alternative to Arellano-Bond," Applied Economics, Taylor & Francis Journals, vol. 51(20), pages 2221-2232, April.
    15. Giulio Bottazzi & Alex Coad & Nadia Jacoby & Angelo Secchi, 2011. "Corporate growth and industrial dynamics: evidence from French manufacturing," Applied Economics, Taylor & Francis Journals, vol. 43(1), pages 103-116.
    16. Robert E. Lucas Jr., 1978. "On the Size Distribution of Business Firms," Bell Journal of Economics, The RAND Corporation, vol. 9(2), pages 508-523, Autumn.
    17. Luis Mireles-Flores, 2022. "The Evidence for Free Trade and Its Background Assumptions: How Well-Established Causal Generalisations Can Be Useless for Policy," Review of Political Economy, Taylor & Francis Journals, vol. 34(3), pages 534-563, July.
    18. Blundell, Richard & Bond, Stephen, 1998. "Initial conditions and moment restrictions in dynamic panel data models," Journal of Econometrics, Elsevier, vol. 87(1), pages 115-143, August.
    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. Colombelli, Alessandra & Haned, Naciba & Le Bas, Christian, 2013. "On firm growth and innovation: Some new empirical perspectives using French CIS (1992–2004)," Structural Change and Economic Dynamics, Elsevier, vol. 26(C), pages 14-26.
    2. Wadho, Waqar & Goedhuys, Micheline & Chaudhry, Azam, 2019. "Young innovative companies and employment creation, evidence from the Pakistani textiles sector," World Development, Elsevier, vol. 117(C), pages 139-152.
    3. Alexander Coad, 2007. "Firm Growth: A Survey," Papers on Economics and Evolution 2007-03, Philipps University Marburg, Department of Geography.
    4. Francesca Lotti & Enrico Santarelli & Marco Vivarelli, 2009. "Defending Gibrat’s Law as a long-run regularity," Small Business Economics, Springer, vol. 32(1), pages 31-44, January.
    5. Jozef Konings & Ana Xavier, 2002. "Firm Growth and Survival in a Transition Country: Micro Evidence from Slovenia," LICOS Discussion Papers 11402, LICOS - Centre for Institutions and Economic Performance, KU Leuven.
    6. Aili Tang, 2015. "Does Gibrat’s law hold for Swedish energy firms?," Empirical Economics, Springer, vol. 49(2), pages 659-674, September.
    7. Nuno Silva & Pedro Dias Moreira, 2023. "On the forecasting power of corporate sales growth determinants," Economic Bulletin and Financial Stability Report Articles and Banco de Portugal Economic Studies, Banco de Portugal, Economics and Research Department.
    8. Sergio de Nardis & Massimo Mancini & Carmine Pappalardo, 2003. "Regolazione del mercato del lavoro e crescita dimensionale delle imprese: Una verifica sull'effetto soglia dei 15 dipendenti," ISAE Working Papers 38, ISTAT - Italian National Institute of Statistics - (Rome, ITALY).
    9. Tang, Ali, 2014. "Does Gibrat’s Law Hold for Swedish Energy Firms?," HUI Working Papers 99, HUI Research.
    10. José Miguel Benavente & Christian Ferrada, 2004. "Probability of Survival of New Manufacturing Plants: the case of Chile," Econometric Society 2004 Latin American Meetings 305, Econometric Society.
    11. repec:ptu:bdpart:e202309 is not listed on IDEAS
    12. Jaap H. Abbring & Jeffrey R. Campbell, 2005. "A Firm's First Year," Tinbergen Institute Discussion Papers 05-046/3, Tinbergen Institute.
    13. Alex Coad & Werner Hölzl, 2012. "Firm Growth: Empirical Analysis," Chapters, in: Michael Dietrich & Jackie Krafft (ed.), Handbook on the Economics and Theory of the Firm, chapter 24, Edward Elgar Publishing.
    14. Wadho, Waqar & Goedhuys, Micheline & Chaudry, Azam, 2019. "Do young innovative companies create more jobs? Evidence from Pakistani textile firms," MERIT Working Papers 2019-002, United Nations University - Maastricht Economic and Social Research Institute on Innovation and Technology (MERIT).
    15. Sleuwaegen, Leo & Goedhuys, Micheline, 2002. "Growth of firms in developing countries, evidence from Cote d'Ivoire," Journal of Development Economics, Elsevier, vol. 68(1), pages 117-135, June.
    16. Dolev, Yuval & Kimhi, Ayal, 2010. "Do family farms really converge to a uniform size? The role of unobserved farm efficiency," Australian Journal of Agricultural and Resource Economics, Australian Agricultural and Resource Economics Society, vol. 54(01), pages 1-18.
    17. Roy Thurik, 2014. "Entrepreneurship and the business cycle," World of Labour, LISER, pages 1-90, October.
    18. Matthias Duschl & Thomas Brenner, 2013. "Characteristics of regional industry-specific employment growth rates' distributions," Papers in Regional Science, Wiley Blackwell, vol. 92(2), pages 249-270, June.
    19. Blandina Oliveira & Adelino Fortunato, 2006. "Testing Gibrat's Law: Empirical Evidence from a Panel of Portuguese Manufacturing Firms," International Journal of the Economics of Business, Taylor & Francis Journals, vol. 13(1), pages 65-81.
    20. Hwan-Joo Seo & Han Sung Kim & Young Soo Lee, 2015. "Globalization and Labor Demand Elasticities: Empirical Evidence from Nine OECD Countries," Korean Economic Review, Korean Economic Association, vol. 31, pages 413-439.

    More about this item

    Keywords

    ;
    ;
    ;
    ;
    ;
    ;
    ;

    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:gam:jadmsc:v:14:y:2024:i:10:p:239-:d:1488430. 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: MDPI Indexing Manager The email address of this maintainer does not seem to be valid anymore. Please ask MDPI Indexing Manager to update the entry or send us the correct address (email available below). General contact details of provider: https://www.mdpi.com .

    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.