OECD labor markets have become more “polarized” with employment in the middle of the skill distribution falling relative to the top and (in recent years) also the bottom of the skill distribution. We test the hypothesis of Autor, Levy, and Murnane (2003) that this is partly due to...

Although there is a large literature on the economic effects of minimum wages on labour market outcomes (especially employment), there is hardly any evidence on their impact on firm performance. This is surprising: minimum wages appear to have a significant impact on wages, but only a limited...

This Paper exploits area-based piloting and age-related eligibility rules to identify treatment effects of a labour market program – the New Deal for Young People in the UK. A central focus is on substitution/displacement effects and on equilibrium wage effects. The programme includes...

This paper investigates the impact of innovation on employment using a panel of UK manufacturing firms and a headcount measure of innovations. It focuses on unionized firms and outlines a methodology for testing between various types of union bargaining models. It also argues that the innovation...

This paper fits a gravity model to the trade of 76 market economies. It then applies the model to data on East European economies to estimate what their trading potential might have been, had behaved like market economies in the mid-1980s. At existing levels of national income, the...

The theoretical literature follows two different approaches to explain the endogenous formation of a Customs Union (CU). The first one explains CU formation through the willingness of integrating partners to exploit terms-of-trade effects. Indeed, as the union forms, the 'domestic market' gets...

The welfare effects of PTAs are most directly linked to changes in trade prices, i.e., the terms of trade. This paper employs a simple strategic pricing game in segmented markets to measure the effects of MERCOSUR on the pricing of 'non-member' exports to the region. Working with detailed data...

This paper appraises the arguments that the creation of the EC has increased world protectionism <MI>relative to what it would otherwise have been<D>. Models of tariff bargaining between trade blocs suggest some increase, because the optimum tariff is higher for larger blocs, but this is not...</d></mi>

This paper constructs a simulation model of the EC footwear market with which to consider the effects of EC trade policies. It examines the Southern enlargement of the EC, the quotas imposed on Korean and Taiwanese sales - initially in France and Italy and subsequently, in line with the `1992'...

While barriers to trade in most goods and some services including capital flows have been reduced considerably over the past two decades, many remain. Such policies harm most the economies imposing them, but the worst of the merchandise barriers (in agriculture and textiles) are particularly...