IDEAS home Printed from https://ideas.repec.org/p/cpr/ceprdp/2240.html
   My bibliography  Save this paper

Imperfect Labour Contracts and International Trade

Author

Listed:
  • Grossman, Gene

Abstract

In an economy with imperfect labour contracts, differences in the distribution of human capital are an independent source of comparative advantage. I study a world economy with two sectors, one where output is produced by teams and another where individuals can work alone. When workers' abilities are private information and workers cannot verify the value of output or the level of a firm's profits, feasible labour contracts fail to generate efficient matching of workers within teams. The mismatch of talent on teams is more severe in the country with the more heterogeneous labour force, which generates a comparative disadvantage for this country in team production. Trade exacerbates the 'polarization' of the more diverse society. National income could be raised, and the distribution of income improved, by a marginal expansion in the size of the team sector.

Suggested Citation

  • Grossman, Gene, 1999. "Imperfect Labour Contracts and International Trade," CEPR Discussion Papers 2240, C.E.P.R. Discussion Papers.
    • Handle: RePEc:cpr:ceprdp:2240
    as

    Download full text from publisher

    File URL: http://www.cepr.org/active/publications/discussion_papers/dp.php?dpno=2240
    Download Restriction: CEPR Discussion Papers are free to download for our researchers, subscribers and members. If you fall into one of these categories but have trouble downloading our papers, please contact us at subscribers@cepr.org

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

    Other versions of this item:

    References listed on IDEAS

    as
    1. Giovanni Maggi & Gene M. Grossman, 2000. "Diversity and Trade," American Economic Review, American Economic Association, vol. 90(5), pages 1255-1275, December.
    2. Kiminori Matsuyama, 1992. "A Simple Model of Sectoral Adjustment," Review of Economic Studies, Oxford University Press, vol. 59(2), pages 375-387.
    3. Kremer, M & Maskin, E, 1996. "Wage Inequality and Segregation by Skill," Working papers 96-23, Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT), Department of Economics.
    4. Michael Kremer, 1993. "The O-Ring Theory of Economic Development," The Quarterly Journal of Economics, Oxford University Press, vol. 108(3), pages 551-575.
    5. Mussa, Michael, 1982. "Imperfect factor mobility and the distribution of income," Journal of International Economics, Elsevier, vol. 12(1-2), pages 125-141, February.
    6. Kevin M. Murphy & Andrei Shleifer & Robert W. Vishny, 1991. "The Allocation of Talent: Implications for Growth," The Quarterly Journal of Economics, Oxford University Press, vol. 106(2), pages 503-530.
    7. Clemenz, Gerhard, 1995. " Adverse Selection in Labor Markets and International Trade," Scandinavian Journal of Economics, Wiley Blackwell, vol. 97(1), pages 73-88, March.
    8. Weiss, Andrew W, 1980. "Job Queues and Layoffs in Labor Markets with Flexible Wages," Journal of Political Economy, University of Chicago Press, vol. 88(3), pages 526-538, June.
    9. Patrick Legros & Andrew F. Newman, 2002. "Monotone Matching in Perfect and Imperfect Worlds," Review of Economic Studies, Oxford University Press, vol. 69(4), pages 925-942.
    10. 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.
    11. Rosen, Sherwin, 1981. "The Economics of Superstars," American Economic Review, American Economic Association, vol. 71(5), pages 845-858, December.
    12. Krugman, Paul R., 2000. "Technology, trade and factor prices," Journal of International Economics, Elsevier, vol. 50(1), pages 51-71, February.
    13. Malcomson, James M, 1981. "Unemployment and the Efficiency Wage Hypothesis," Economic Journal, Royal Economic Society, vol. 91(364), pages 848-866, December.
    14. Milgrom, Paul & Roberts, John, 1990. "The Economics of Modern Manufacturing: Technology, Strategy, and Organization," American Economic Review, American Economic Association, vol. 80(3), pages 511-528, June.
    15. Ruffin, Roy J, 1988. "The Missing Link: The Ricardian Approach to the Factor Endowments Theory of Trade," American Economic Review, American Economic Association, vol. 78(4), pages 759-772, September.
    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. Jansen, Marion, 2000. "International trade and the position of European low-skilled labour," WTO Staff Working Papers ERAD-2000-01, World Trade Organization (WTO), Economic Research and Statistics Division.
    2. Bin Xu, 2003. "Trade and financial liberalization with asymmetric information in bank financing," Journal of Economic Policy Reform, Taylor & Francis Journals, vol. 6(2), pages 57-69.
    3. Strand, Jon, 2003. "The decline or expansion of unions: a bargaining model with heterogeneous labor," European Journal of Political Economy, Elsevier, vol. 19(2), pages 317-340, June.

    More about this item

    Keywords

    Comparative Advantage; Diversity; Income Distribution; Labour Contracts; Team Production;

    JEL classification:

    • D51 - Microeconomics - - General Equilibrium and Disequilibrium - - - Exchange and Production Economies
    • F11 - International Economics - - Trade - - - Neoclassical Models of Trade

    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:cpr:ceprdp:2240. See general information about how to correct material in RePEc.

    For technical questions regarding this item, or to correct its authors, title, abstract, bibliographic or download information, contact: (). General contact details of provider: .

    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 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.

    Please note that corrections may take a couple of weeks to filter through the various RePEc services.

    IDEAS is a RePEc service hosted by the Research Division of the Federal Reserve Bank of St. Louis . RePEc uses bibliographic data supplied by the respective publishers.