IDEAS home Printed from https://ideas.repec.org/a/wsi/serxxx/v57y2012i04ns0217590812500269.html
   My bibliography  Save this article

Foreign Workers And Within Industry Dynamics

Author

Listed:
  • DOMINIC SOON

    (Ministry of Trade and Industry, 100 High Street #11-01, Singapore 179434, Singapore)

  • JANG PING THIA

    (Ministry of Trade and Industry, 100 High Street #11-01, Singapore 179434, Singapore)

Abstract

Using a services firm-level dataset for Singapore, we find that different services industries have different industry dynamics with regards to work-permit foreign workers (FWs). In the retail industry, higher FW use is associated with lower firm-level profitability. This suggests that greater industry consolidation through tighter FW allocation could improve overall productivity in the sector. On the other hand, greater FW use in the hotel industry is associated with higher firm-level productivity. This suggests that FWs represent a critical input that supports more productive firms in this tradable sector. Hence, for this sector, FW policy should be more accommodative.

Suggested Citation

  • Dominic Soon & Jang Ping Thia, 2012. "Foreign Workers And Within Industry Dynamics," The Singapore Economic Review (SER), World Scientific Publishing Co. Pte. Ltd., vol. 57(04), pages 1-15.
    • Handle: RePEc:wsi:serxxx:v:57:y:2012:i:04:n:s0217590812500269
    DOI: 10.1142/S0217590812500269
    as

    Download full text from publisher

    File URL: http://www.worldscientific.com/doi/abs/10.1142/S0217590812500269
    Download Restriction: Access to full text is restricted to subscribers
    File URL: https://libkey.io/10.1142/S0217590812500269?utm_source=ideas
    LibKey link: if access is restricted and if your library uses this service, LibKey will redirect you to where you can use your library subscription to access this item
    ---><---

    As the access to this document is restricted, you may want to search for a different version of it.

    References listed on IDEAS

    as
    1. Elhanan Helpman & Oleg Itskhoki & Stephen Redding, 2010. "Inequality and Unemployment in a Global Economy," Econometrica, Econometric Society, vol. 78(4), pages 1239-1283, July.
    2. Stiglitz, Joseph E, 1976. "The Efficiency Wage Hypothesis, Surplus Labour, and the Distribution of Income in L.D.C.s," Oxford Economic Papers, Oxford University Press, vol. 28(2), pages 185-207, July.
    3. Christopher A. Pissarides, 2000. "Equilibrium Unemployment Theory, 2nd Edition," MIT Press Books, The MIT Press, edition 1, volume 1, number 0262161877, December.
    4. Nicholas Bloom & Raffaella Sadun & John Van Reenen, 2012. "Americans Do IT Better: US Multinationals and the Productivity Miracle," American Economic Review, American Economic Association, vol. 102(1), pages 167-201, February.
    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. Elhanan Helpman, 2010. "Labor Market Frictions as a Source of Comparative Advantage, with Implications for Unemployment and Inequality," NBER Working Papers 15764, National Bureau of Economic Research, Inc.
    2. Mathan Satchi & Jonathan Temple, 2006. "Growth and labour markets in developing countries," Bristol Economics Discussion Papers 06/581, School of Economics, University of Bristol, UK.
    3. Lastauskas, Povilas & Stakėnas, Julius, 2020. "Labor market reforms and the monetary policy environment," European Economic Review, Elsevier, vol. 128(C).
    4. Gregory Veramendi, 2012. "Labor Market Dynamics: A Model of Search and Human Capital Accumulation," 2012 Meeting Papers 1059, Society for Economic Dynamics.
    5. Dinopoulos, Elias & Grieben, Wolf-Heimo & Şener, Fuat, 2023. "A Policy Conundrum: Schumpeterian Growth or Job Creation?," Economic Modelling, Elsevier, vol. 126(C).
    6. Elhanan Helpman & Oleg Itskhoki & Stephen Redding, 2010. "Inequality and Unemployment in a Global Economy," Econometrica, Econometric Society, vol. 78(4), pages 1239-1283, July.
    7. Felbermayr, Gabriel & Prat, Julien & Schmerer, Hans-Jörg, 2011. "Globalization and labor market outcomes: Wage bargaining, search frictions, and firm heterogeneity," Journal of Economic Theory, Elsevier, vol. 146(1), pages 39-73, January.
    8. Kézdi, Gábor & Mátyás, László & Balázsi, László & Divényi, János Károly, 2014. "A közgazdasági adatforradalom és a panelökonometria [The revolution in economic data and panel econometrics]," Közgazdasági Szemle (Economic Review - monthly of the Hungarian Academy of Sciences), Közgazdasági Szemle Alapítvány (Economic Review Foundation), vol. 0(11), pages 1319-1340.
    9. A. Kerem Co?ar & Nezih Guner & James Tybout, 2016. "Firm Dynamics, Job Turnover, and Wage Distributions in an Open Economy," American Economic Review, American Economic Association, vol. 106(3), pages 625-663, March.
    10. Heid, Benedikt & Larch, Mario, 2016. "Gravity with unemployment," Journal of International Economics, Elsevier, vol. 101(C), pages 70-85.
    11. Germ n Pupato & Ben Sand & Jeanne Tschopp, 2019. "Estimating the Gains from Trade in Frictional Local Labor Markets," Diskussionsschriften dp1909, Universitaet Bern, Departement Volkswirtschaft.
    12. Elhanan Helpman & Oleg Itskhoki, "undated". "Trade Liberalization and Labor Market Dynamics with Heterogeneous Firms," Working Paper 199161, Harvard University OpenScholar.
    13. Lee, Chul-In, 2008. "Migration and the wage and unemployment gaps between urban and non-urban sectors: A dynamic general equilibrium reinterpretation of the Harris-Todaro equilibrium," Labour Economics, Elsevier, vol. 15(6), pages 1416-1434, December.
    14. Chul‐In Lee, 2010. "Can Search‐Matching Models Explain Migration And Wage And Unemployment Gaps In Developing Economies? A Calibration Approach," Journal of Regional Science, Wiley Blackwell, vol. 50(2), pages 635-654, May.
    15. Schmerer, Hans-Jörg, 2012. "FDI, skill-specific unemployment, and institutional spillover effects," Economics Discussion Papers 2012-2, Kiel Institute for the World Economy (IfW Kiel).
    16. Tadashi Morita & Yukiko Sawada & Kazuhiro Yamamoto, 2020. "Subsidy competition and imperfect labor markets," Journal of Public Economic Theory, Association for Public Economic Theory, vol. 22(3), pages 698-728, June.
    17. Emmanuel Saez & Pascal Michaillat, 2013. "A Theory of Aggregate Supply and Aggregate Demand as Functions of Market Tightness with Prices as Parameters," 2013 Meeting Papers 1216, Society for Economic Dynamics.
    18. Hassan Molana & Catia Montagna & George E. Onwordi, 2021. "De-Globalization, Welfare State Reforms and Labor Market Outcomes," IMF Economic Review, Palgrave Macmillan;International Monetary Fund, vol. 69(4), pages 624-655, December.
    19. Wu Joseph S. K. & Ho Chi Pui, 2017. "The Shapiro-Stiglitz Model with Non-constant Marginal Utility," Open Economics, De Gruyter, vol. 1(1), pages 36-48, August.
    20. Jäger, Simon & Heining, Jörg, 2019. "How Substitutable Are Workers? Evidence from Worker Deaths," MPRA Paper 109757, University Library of Munich, Germany, revised 01 Jan 2019.

    More about this item

    Keywords

    Labor markets; firm heterogeneity; allocative efficiency; J31; J48; L25;
    All these keywords.

    JEL classification:

    • J31 - Labor and Demographic Economics - - Wages, Compensation, and Labor Costs - - - Wage Level and Structure; Wage Differentials
    • J48 - Labor and Demographic Economics - - Particular Labor Markets - - - Particular Labor Markets; Public Policy
    • L25 - Industrial Organization - - Firm Objectives, Organization, and Behavior - - - Firm Performance

    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:wsi:serxxx:v:57:y:2012:i:04:n:s0217590812500269. 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: Tai Tone Lim (email available below). General contact details of provider: http://www.worldscinet.com/ser/ser.shtml .

    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.