This paper focuses on the ability of the labor market to efficiently match heterogeneous workers to jobs within a given industry and the role that globalization plays in that process. Using matched worker–firm data from Sweden, we find strong evidence that openness improves the matching...

Estimates of labor mobility costs are needed to assess the responses of employment and wages to trade shocks when factor adjustment is costly. Available methods to estimate those costs rely on panel data, which are seldom available in developing countries. We propose a method to estimate...

A common critique of globalization is that it leads to a race to the bottom. Specifically, it is assumed that multinationals invest in countries with lower regulatory standards and that countries competitively undercut each other's standards in order to attract foreign capital. This paper tests...

We introduce a simple but flexible analytical framework in which both trade in goods and trade in tasks arise. We use this framework to provide versions of the gains-from-trade and the famous four HO theorems (Heckscher–Ohlin, factor-price-equalisation, Stolper–Samuelson, and Rybczynski)...

This paper studies how labor market frictions affect the consequences of trade integration in a two-country dynamic stochastic general equilibrium model with heterogeneous firms and endogenous producer entry. Two main results emerge. First, trade integration is beneficial for welfare by inducing...

In this paper, we use a linked employer–employee database from Brazil to evaluate the wage effects of trade reform. With an aggregate (firm-level) analysis of this question, we find that a decline in trade protection is associated with an increase in average wages in exporting firms relative...

This paper investigates a theoretical mechanism linking comparative advantage to the distribution of skills in the working population. We develop a tractable multi-country, multi-industry model of trade with unobservable skills in the labour market and show that comparative advantage derives...

We develop a model for analyzing the distributional effects of two globalizations and their interdependence. We distinguish between two trade cost reductions, (i) trade liberalizations in the 1980s, which increased trade in low-skill-intensive goods (denoted L-globalization) and (ii) reductions...

We analyze the relationship between offshoring and the onshore workforce composition in German multinational enterprises (MNEs), using plant data that allow us to discern tasks, occupations, and workforce skills. Offshoring is associated with a statistically significant shift towards more...

Knowledge is key to the competitiveness and success of an organization and in particular of a firm. Firms and their managers acquire knowledge via a variety of different channels which are often difficult to track down and quantify. By matching employer–employee data with trade data at the...