IDEAS home Printed from https://ideas.repec.org/p/cdl/agrebk/qt7gc7t3nm.html
   My bibliography  Save this paper

Labor Adjustment and Gradual Reform:Is Commitment Important?

Author

Listed:
  • Karp, Larry
  • Paul, Thierry

Abstract

We analyze a model in which a government uses a second best policy to affect the reallocation of labor, following a change in relative prices. We consider two extreme cases, in which the government has either unlimited or negligible ability to commit to future actions. We explain why the ability to make commitments may be unimportant, and we illustrate this conjecture with numerical examples. For either assumption about commitment ability, the equilibrium policy involves gradual liberalization. The dying sector is protected during the transition to a free market, in order to decrease the amount of unemployment. Our results are sensitive to the assumptions about migration.

Suggested Citation

  • Karp, Larry & Paul, Thierry, 1994. "Labor Adjustment and Gradual Reform:Is Commitment Important?," Department of Agricultural & Resource Economics, UC Berkeley, Working Paper Series qt7gc7t3nm, Department of Agricultural & Resource Economics, UC Berkeley.
    • Handle: RePEc:cdl:agrebk:qt7gc7t3nm
    as

    Download full text from publisher

    File URL: https://www.escholarship.org/uc/item/7gc7t3nm.pdf;origin=repeccitec
    Download Restriction: no
    ---><---

    Other versions of this item:

    References listed on IDEAS

    as
    1. V. V. Chari & Patrick J. Kehoe, 1993. "Sustainable Plans and Mutual Default," The Review of Economic Studies, Review of Economic Studies Ltd, vol. 60(1), pages 175-195.
    2. Cassing, James H & Ochs, Jack, 1978. "International Trade, Factor-Market Distortions, and the Optimal Dynamic Subsidy: Comment," American Economic Review, American Economic Association, vol. 68(5), pages 950-955, December.
    3. Matsuyama, Kiminori, 1990. "Perfect Equilibria in a Trade Liberalization Game," American Economic Review, American Economic Association, vol. 80(3), pages 480-492, June.
    4. Lapan, Harvey E, 1978. "International Trade, Factor-Market Distortions, and the Optimal Dynamic Subsidy: Reply," American Economic Review, American Economic Association, vol. 68(5), pages 956-959, December.
    5. Karp, Larry & Paul, Thierry, 1994. "Phasing In and Phasing Out Protectionism with Costly Adjustment of Labour," Economic Journal, Royal Economic Society, vol. 104(427), pages 1379-1392, November.
    6. David Begg & Richard Portes, 1993. "Eastern Germany since unification: wage subsidies remain a better way," The Economics of Transition, The European Bank for Reconstruction and Development, vol. 1(4), pages 383-400, December.
    7. Edwards, Sebastian, 1988. "Terms of Trade, Tariffs, and Labor Market Adjustment in Developing Countries," The World Bank Economic Review, World Bank, vol. 2(2), pages 165-185, May.
    8. Abel, István & Bonin, John, 1992. "The `Big Bang' Versus `Slow but Steady': A Comparison of the Hungarian and the Polish Transformations," CEPR Discussion Papers 626, C.E.P.R. Discussion Papers.
    9. Maskin, Eric S & Newbery, David M, 1990. "Disadvantageous Oil Tariffs and Dynamic Consistency," American Economic Review, American Economic Association, vol. 80(1), pages 143-156, March.
    10. Rodrik, Dani, 1989. "Promises, Promises: Credible Policy Reform via Signalling," Economic Journal, Royal Economic Society, vol. 99(397), pages 756-772, September.
    11. Harris, John R & Todaro, Michael P, 1970. "Migration, Unemployment & Development: A Two-Sector Analysis," American Economic Review, American Economic Association, vol. 60(1), pages 126-142, March.
    12. George A. Akerlof & Andrew K. Rose & Janet L. Yellen & Helga Hessenius, 1991. "East Germany in from the Cold: The Economic Aftermath of Currency Union," Brookings Papers on Economic Activity, Economic Studies Program, The Brookings Institution, vol. 22(1), pages 1-106.
    13. Lapan, Harvey E, 1976. "International Trade, Factor Market Distortions, and the Optimal Dynamic Subsidy," American Economic Review, American Economic Association, vol. 66(3), pages 335-346, June.
    14. Chari, V V & Kehoe, Patrick J, 1990. "Sustainable Plans," Journal of Political Economy, University of Chicago Press, vol. 98(4), pages 783-802, August.
    15. Bofinger, Peter & Cernohorsky, Ivan, 1992. "Some Lessons from Economic Transformation in East Germany," CEPR Discussion Papers 686, C.E.P.R. Discussion Papers.
    Full references (including those not matched with items on IDEAS)

    Citations

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


    Cited by:

    1. Karp, Larry S., 1995. "The Direction and Timing of Agricultural Trade Reform in Central and East Europe," CUDARE Working Papers 6297, University of California, Berkeley, Department of Agricultural and Resource Economics.

    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. Karp, Larry & Paul, Thierry, 1998. "Labor adjustment and gradual reform: when is commitment important?," Journal of International Economics, Elsevier, vol. 46(2), pages 333-362, December.
    2. John Mutti, 1981. "Regional Analysis from the Standpoint of International Trade: Is it a Useful Perspective?," International Regional Science Review, , vol. 6(2), pages 95-120, August.
    3. Agnès Bénassy-Quéré & Pierre Villa, 1994. "La réunification allemande du point de vue de la politique économique," Working Papers 1994-09, CEPII research center.
    4. Jean-Bernard Chatelain & Kirsten Ralf, 2017. "Can We Identify the Fed's Preferences?," Working Papers halshs-01549908, HAL.
    5. Chatelain, Jean-Bernard & Ralf, Kirsten, 2020. "Hopf Bifurcation from New-Keynesian Taylor Rule to Ramsey Optimal Policy," EconStor Open Access Articles, ZBW - Leibniz Information Centre for Economics.
    6. Harold L. Cole & Timothy J. Kehoe, 1996. "A self-fulfilling model of Mexico's 1994-95 debt crisis," Staff Report 210, Federal Reserve Bank of Minneapolis.
    7. Benhabib, Jess & Rustichini, Aldo, 1997. "Optimal Taxes without Commitment," Journal of Economic Theory, Elsevier, vol. 77(2), pages 231-259, December.
    8. Gorostiaga, Arantza, 2003. "Should fiscal policy be different in a non-competitive framework?," Journal of Monetary Economics, Elsevier, vol. 50(6), pages 1311-1331, September.
    9. Gerling, Katja, 1998. "Transfers and transition: The impact of government support on factor demand and production in Eastern Germany," Kiel Working Papers 878, Kiel Institute for the World Economy (IfW Kiel).
    10. Daron Acemoglu & Michael Golosov & Aleh Tsyvinski, 2006. "Markets Versus Governments: Political Economy of Mechanisms," Levine's Bibliography 321307000000000032, UCLA Department of Economics.
    11. Juan P. Nicolini, 1993. "More on the time inconsistency of optimal monetary policy," Economics Working Papers 56, Department of Economics and Business, Universitat Pompeu Fabra.
    12. Hughes Hallett, A. & Ma, Y. & Melitz, J., 1996. "Unification and the policy predicament in Germany," Economic Modelling, Elsevier, vol. 13(4), pages 519-544, October.
    13. Maurice Obstfeld, 1989. "Dynamic Seigniorage Theory: An Exploration," NBER Working Papers 2869, National Bureau of Economic Research, Inc.
    14. Christian Moser & Pierre Yared, 2022. "Pandemic Lockdown: The Role of Government Commitment," Review of Economic Dynamics, Elsevier for the Society for Economic Dynamics, vol. 46, pages 27-50, October.
    15. Schaumburg, Ernst & Tambalotti, Andrea, 2007. "An investigation of the gains from commitment in monetary policy," Journal of Monetary Economics, Elsevier, vol. 54(2), pages 302-324, March.
    16. Mark Aguiar & Manuel Amador, 2013. "Sovereign Debt: A Review," NBER Working Papers 19388, National Bureau of Economic Research, Inc.
    17. Staiger, Robert W., 1995. "International rules and institutions for trade policy," Handbook of International Economics, in: G. M. Grossman & K. Rogoff (ed.), Handbook of International Economics, edition 1, volume 3, chapter 29, pages 1495-1551, Elsevier.
    18. Uysal, Pinar & Yotov, Yoto V. & Zylkin, Thomas, 2015. "Firm heterogeneity and trade-induced layoffs: An empirical investigation," European Economic Review, Elsevier, vol. 75(C), pages 80-97.
    19. Siu, Henry E., 2008. "Time consistent monetary policy with endogenous price rigidity," Journal of Economic Theory, Elsevier, vol. 138(1), pages 184-210, January.
    20. Cole, Harold L. & Kehoe, Timothy J., 1996. "A self-fulfilling model of Mexico's 1994-1995 debt crisis," Journal of International Economics, Elsevier, vol. 41(3-4), pages 309-330, November.

    More about this item

    Keywords

    adjustment costs; dynamic tariffs; time inconsistency; Markov perfection;
    All these keywords.

    JEL classification:

    • F13 - International Economics - - Trade - - - Trade Policy; International Trade Organizations
    • J20 - Labor and Demographic Economics - - Demand and Supply of Labor - - - General
    • J24 - Labor and Demographic Economics - - Demand and Supply of Labor - - - Human Capital; Skills; Occupational Choice; Labor Productivity

    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:cdl:agrebk:qt7gc7t3nm. 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: Lisa Schiff (email available below). General contact details of provider: https://edirc.repec.org/data/dabrkus.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.