This paper presents a simple methodology to estimate the elasticity of substitution between labor and capital for firms operating in perfectly competitive markets with CRS production functions. It is applied in a cross-country sample to 28 3-digit ISIC manufacturing industries. The econometric...

The paper demonstrates that two relatively unknown features of the employment cycle in U.S. manufacturing industries can provide a clue to understanding the role of sectorial shocks in the evolution of aggregate employment. First, interindustry wage differentials rise in expansions and fall in...

Summary We use detailed Chilean plant-level data from 1990 to 2000 to study the impact of Chinese import competition in manufacturing industries. We study whether China's imports have been associated with a downsizing of manufacturing plants or whether firms have escaped Chinese competition...

China's tariff structure favours labour-intensive sectors, and this is at odds with traditional theory of comparative advantage. The paper argues that tariffs in China are a mechanism for protecting technology-backward domestic - especially state-owned enterprises (SOEs) from competition...

The unemployment path in the United States in the last forty years can be significantly explained by the evolution of excessive real wages. An estimation of the evolution of market-clearing wages is presented and its difference with observed average wages - the wage gap - is shown to track...

Globalization, in its multiple interpretations, is seen by many people as a great possibility of improving living standards in developing countries. Trade and financial integration can encourage competition, technology transfers and specialization according to comparative advantage principles....

In the last two decades tariffs around the globe have fallen significantly. However, less well known are their changes in the sectorial structure of protection rates. Between 1988 and 1998, relative tariffs have increased in capital-intensive sectors, and this shift is specially strong in low...

This paper presents a model that introduces foreign firms' competition in product and factor markets in an otherwise standard tariff liberalization setting. Pressures on factor markets from more advanced foreign firms undermine the competitive position of native enterprises. The final impact on...