IDEAS home Printed from https://ideas.repec.org/p/nbr/nberwo/19492.html
   My bibliography  Save this paper

Labor Market Frictions, Firm Growth, and International Trade

Author

Listed:
  • Pablo D. Fajgelbaum

Abstract

I study the aggregate effects of labor market frictions in a small open economy where firms grow slowly and make fixed export investments. The model features interactions between dynamic investments in exporting and search frictions with job-to-job mobility. A calibration to Argentina's economy matching data on firm growth, worker transitions between firms, and export dynamics suggests that the real income gains from lowering frictions in job-to-job transitions are about 7 times larger than comparable reductions in frictions from unemployment. Barriers to worker mobility across firms matter for the real income gains of trade-cost reductions.

Suggested Citation

  • Pablo D. Fajgelbaum, 2013. "Labor Market Frictions, Firm Growth, and International Trade," NBER Working Papers 19492, National Bureau of Economic Research, Inc.
    • Handle: RePEc:nbr:nberwo:19492
    Note: ITI
    as

    Download full text from publisher

    File URL: http://www.nber.org/papers/w19492.pdf
    Download Restriction: no
    ---><---

    References listed on IDEAS

    as
    1. Pierre Cahuc & Fabien Postel-Vinay & Jean-Marc Robin, 2006. "Wage Bargaining with On-the-Job Search: Theory and Evidence," Econometrica, Econometric Society, vol. 74(2), pages 323-364, March.
    2. Satyajit Chatterjee & Esteban Rossi‐Hansberg, 2012. "Spinoffs And The Market For Ideas," International Economic Review, Department of Economics, University of Pennsylvania and Osaka University Institute of Social and Economic Research Association, vol. 53(1), pages 53-93, February.
    3. Bontemps, Christian & Robin, Jean-Marc & van den Berg, Gerard J, 2000. "Equilibrium Search with Continuous Productivity Dispersion: Theory and Nonparametric Estimation," International Economic Review, Department of Economics, University of Pennsylvania and Osaka University Institute of Social and Economic Research Association, vol. 41(2), pages 305-358, May.
    4. Giuseppe Moscarini & Fabien Postel-Vinay, 2013. "Stochastic Search Equilibrium," The Review of Economic Studies, Review of Economic Studies Ltd, vol. 80(4), pages 1545-1581.
    5. Kalina Manova & Zhiwei Zhang, 2012. "Export Prices Across Firms and Destinations," The Quarterly Journal of Economics, President and Fellows of Harvard College, vol. 127(1), pages 379-436.
    6. Fabien Postel-Vinay & Jean-Marc Robin, 2002. "The Distribution of Earnings in an Equilibrium Search Model with State-Dependent Offers and Counteroffers," International Economic Review, Department of Economics, University of Pennsylvania and Osaka University Institute of Social and Economic Research Association, vol. 43(4), pages 989-1016, November.
    7. A. Kerem Co?ar & Nezih Guner & James Tybout, 2016. "Firm Dynamics, Job Turnover, and Wage Distributions in an Open Economy," American Economic Review, American Economic Association, vol. 106(3), pages 625-663, March.
    8. Gregory Jolivet & Fabien Postel-Vinay & Jean-Marc Robin, 2006. "The Empirical Content of the Job Search Model: Labor Mobility and Wage Distributions in Europe and the U.S.$," Contributions to Economic Analysis, in: Structural Models of Wage and Employment Dynamics, pages 269-308, Emerald Group Publishing Limited.
    9. Haltiwanger, John & Scarpetta, Stefano & Schweiger, Helena, 2006. "Assessing job flows across countries : the role of industry, firm size, and regulations," Policy Research Working Paper Series 4070, The World Bank.
    10. Pietro Garibaldi & Espen R. Moen, 2010. "Job to Job Movements in a Simple Search Model," American Economic Review, American Economic Association, vol. 100(2), pages 343-347, May.
    11. Chang-Tai Hsieh & Peter J. Klenow, 2014. "The Life Cycle of Plants in India and Mexico," The Quarterly Journal of Economics, President and Fellows of Harvard College, vol. 129(3), pages 1035-1084.
    12. Sanghamitra Das & Mark J. Roberts & James R. Tybout, 2007. "Market Entry Costs, Producer Heterogeneity, and Export Dynamics," Econometrica, Econometric Society, vol. 75(3), pages 837-873, May.
    13. Redding, Stephen & Venables, Anthony J., 2004. "Economic geography and international inequality," Journal of International Economics, Elsevier, vol. 62(1), pages 53-82, January.
    14. Leo Kaas & Philipp Kircher, 2015. "Efficient Firm Dynamics in a Frictional Labor Market," American Economic Review, American Economic Association, vol. 105(10), pages 3030-3060, October.
    15. Giuseppe Moscarini & Fabien Postel-Vinay, 2013. "Stochastic Search Equilibrium," Review of Economic Studies, Oxford University Press, vol. 80(4), pages 1545-1581.
    16. Ricardo Lagos, 2006. "A Model of TFP," The Review of Economic Studies, Review of Economic Studies Ltd, vol. 73(4), pages 983-1007.
    17. Andrew B. Bernard & J. Bradford Jensen & Stephen J. Redding & Peter K. Schott, 2007. "Firms in International Trade," Journal of Economic Perspectives, American Economic Association, vol. 21(3), pages 105-130, Summer.
    18. Jonathan Eaton & Samuel Kortum & Francis Kramarz, 2011. "An Anatomy of International Trade: Evidence From French Firms," Econometrica, Econometric Society, vol. 79(5), pages 1453-1498, September.
    19. repec:hal:spmain:info:hdl:2441/dc0ckec3fcb29ms9850c12h1p is not listed on IDEAS
    20. Andrew Atkeson & Ariel Tomás Burstein, 2010. "Innovation, Firm Dynamics, and International Trade," Journal of Political Economy, University of Chicago Press, vol. 118(3), pages 433-484, June.
    21. Elhanan Helpman & Oleg Itskhoki, 2010. "Labour Market Rigidities, Trade and Unemployment," The Review of Economic Studies, Review of Economic Studies Ltd, vol. 77(3), pages 1100-1137.
    22. Volker Nocke & Stephen Yeaple, 2014. "Globalization And Multiproduct Firms," International Economic Review, Department of Economics, University of Pennsylvania and Osaka University Institute of Social and Economic Research Association, vol. 55(4), pages 993-1018, November.
    23. Cooper, Russell & Haltiwanger, John & Willis, Jonathan L., 2007. "Search frictions: Matching aggregate and establishment observations," Journal of Monetary Economics, Elsevier, vol. 54(Supplemen), pages 56-78, September.
    24. Costas Arkolakis & Arnaud Costinot & Andres Rodriguez-Clare, 2012. "New Trade Models, Same Old Gains?," American Economic Review, American Economic Association, vol. 102(1), pages 94-130, February.
    25. Kenneth Burdett & Guido Menzio, 2018. "The (Q,S,s) Pricing Rule," The Review of Economic Studies, Review of Economic Studies Ltd, vol. 85(2), pages 892-928.
    26. Costas Arkolakis, 2016. "A Unified Theory of Firm Selection and Growth," The Quarterly Journal of Economics, President and Fellows of Harvard College, vol. 131(1), pages 89-155.
    27. McGrattan, Ellen R. & Prescott, Edward C., 2009. "Openness, technology capital, and development," Journal of Economic Theory, Elsevier, vol. 144(6), pages 2454-2476, November.
    28. Daron Acemoglu & Robert Shimer, 2000. "Wage and Technology Dispersion," The Review of Economic Studies, Review of Economic Studies Ltd, vol. 67(4), pages 585-607.
    29. Hopenhayn, Hugo & Rogerson, Richard, 1993. "Job Turnover and Policy Evaluation: A General Equilibrium Analysis," Journal of Political Economy, University of Chicago Press, vol. 101(5), pages 915-938, October.
    30. Costinot, Arnaud & Rodríguez-Clare, Andrés, 2014. "Trade Theory with Numbers: Quantifying the Consequences of Globalization," Handbook of International Economics, in: Gopinath, G. & Helpman, . & Rogoff, K. (ed.), Handbook of International Economics, edition 1, volume 4, chapter 0, pages 197-261, Elsevier.
    31. Tor Jakob Klette & Samuel Kortum, 2004. "Innovating Firms and Aggregate Innovation," Journal of Political Economy, University of Chicago Press, vol. 112(5), pages 986-1018, October.
    32. Dale T. Mortensen, 2000. "Equilibrium Unemployment with Wage Posting: Burdett-Mortensen Meet Pissarides," Contributions to Economic Analysis, in: Panel Data and Structural Labour Market Models, pages 281-292, Emerald Group Publishing Limited.
    33. repec:hal:spmain:info:hdl:2441/22qd4iha9ql84kd2t534hdeb is not listed on IDEAS
    34. Bruce Fallick & Charles A. Fleischman, 2004. "Employer-to-employer flows in the U.S. labor market: the complete picture of gross worker flows," Finance and Economics Discussion Series 2004-34, Board of Governors of the Federal Reserve System (U.S.).
    35. Marc J. Melitz, 2003. "The Impact of Trade on Intra-Industry Reallocations and Aggregate Industry Productivity," Econometrica, Econometric Society, vol. 71(6), pages 1695-1725, November.
    36. Giuseppe Bertola & Ricardo J. Caballero, 1994. "Cross-Sectional Efficiency and Labour Hoarding in a Matching Model of Unemployment," The Review of Economic Studies, Review of Economic Studies Ltd, vol. 61(3), pages 435-456.
    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. Gabriel Felbermayr & Giammario Impullitti & Julien Prat, 2018. "Firm Dynamics and Residual Inequality in Open Economies," Journal of the European Economic Association, European Economic Association, vol. 16(5), pages 1476-1539.
    2. Dobbelaere, Sabien & Kiyota, Kozo, 2018. "Labor market imperfections, markups and productivity in multinationals and exporters," Labour Economics, Elsevier, vol. 53(C), pages 198-212.
    3. A. Kerem Co?ar & Nezih Guner & James Tybout, 2016. "Firm Dynamics, Job Turnover, and Wage Distributions in an Open Economy," American Economic Review, American Economic Association, vol. 106(3), pages 625-663, March.
    4. Sabien Dobbelaere & Mark Vancauteren, 2014. "Market imperfections, skills and total factor productivity : Firm-level evidence on Belgium and the Netherlands," Working Paper Research 267, National Bank of Belgium.
    5. Bombardini, Matilde & Orefice, Gianluca & Tito, Maria D., 2019. "Does exporting improve matching? Evidence from French employer-employee data," Journal of International Economics, Elsevier, vol. 117(C), pages 229-241.
    6. Gabriel J. Felbermayr & Mario Larch & Wolfgang Lechthaler, 2015. "Labour-market institutions and their impact on trade partners: A quantitative analysis," Canadian Journal of Economics, Canadian Economics Association, vol. 48(5), pages 1917-1943, December.
    7. Gabriel Felbermayr & Gilbert Spiegel, 2014. "A Simple Theory of Trade, Finance and Firm Dynamics," Review of International Economics, Wiley Blackwell, vol. 22(2), pages 253-274, May.
    8. Elhanan Helpman & Oleg Itskhoki, "undated". "Trade Liberalization and Labor Market Dynamics with Heterogeneous Firms," Working Paper 199161, Harvard University OpenScholar.
    9. Céline Carrère & Anja Grujovic & Frédéric Robert-Nicoud, 2020. "Trade and Frictional Unemployment in the Global Economy," Journal of the European Economic Association, European Economic Association, vol. 18(6), pages 2869-2921.
    10. Almeida, Rita K. & Poole, Jennifer P., 2017. "Trade and labor reallocation with heterogeneous enforcement of labor regulations," Journal of Development Economics, Elsevier, vol. 126(C), pages 154-166.
    11. Christian Holzner & Mario Larch, 2011. "Capacity Constraining Labor Market Frictions in a Global Economy," CESifo Working Paper Series 3597, CESifo.
    12. Quint Wiersma, 2019. "The impact of WTO accession on Chinese firms' product and labor market power," Tinbergen Institute Discussion Papers 19-037/V, Tinbergen Institute.

    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. Melitz, Marc J. & Redding, Stephen J., 2014. "Heterogeneous Firms and Trade," Handbook of International Economics, in: Gopinath, G. & Helpman, . & Rogoff, K. (ed.), Handbook of International Economics, edition 1, volume 4, chapter 0, pages 1-54, Elsevier.
    2. Andrew B. Bernard & J. Bradford Jensen & Stephen J. Redding & Peter K. Schott, 2012. "The Empirics of Firm Heterogeneity and International Trade," Annual Review of Economics, Annual Reviews, vol. 4(1), pages 283-313, July.
    3. Elhanan Helpman & Oleg Itskhoki & Marc-Andreas Muendler & Stephen J. Redding, 2017. "Trade and Inequality: From Theory to Estimation," The Review of Economic Studies, Review of Economic Studies Ltd, vol. 84(1), pages 357-405.
    4. Carballo, Jeronimo & Ottaviano, Gianmarco I.P. & Volpe Martincus, Christian, 2018. "The buyer margins of firms' exports," Journal of International Economics, Elsevier, vol. 112(C), pages 33-49.
    5. A. Kerem Co?ar & Nezih Guner & James Tybout, 2016. "Firm Dynamics, Job Turnover, and Wage Distributions in an Open Economy," American Economic Review, American Economic Association, vol. 106(3), pages 625-663, March.
    6. Alessandro Ruggieri, 2019. "Trade and labour market institutions: A tale of two liberalizations," Discussion Papers 2019-15, University of Nottingham, GEP.
    7. Paul S. Segerstrom & Ignat Stepanok, 2018. "Learning How To Export," Scandinavian Journal of Economics, Wiley Blackwell, vol. 120(1), pages 63-92, January.
    8. Head, Keith & Mayer, Thierry, 2014. "Gravity Equations: Workhorse,Toolkit, and Cookbook," Handbook of International Economics, in: Gopinath, G. & Helpman, . & Rogoff, K. (ed.), Handbook of International Economics, edition 1, volume 4, chapter 0, pages 131-195, Elsevier.
    9. Joel Rodrigue, 2014. "Multinational Production, Exports and Aggregate Productivity," Review of Economic Dynamics, Elsevier for the Society for Economic Dynamics, vol. 17(2), pages 243-261, April.
    10. Benedikt Heid, 2014. "Essays on International Trade and Development," ifo Beiträge zur Wirtschaftsforschung, ifo Institute - Leibniz Institute for Economic Research at the University of Munich, number 55.
    11. Macedoni, Luca & Weinberger, Ariel, 2022. "Quality heterogeneity and misallocation: The welfare benefits of raising your standards," Journal of International Economics, Elsevier, vol. 134(C).
    12. Federico Esposito, 2017. "Entrepreneurial Risk and Diversification through Trade," Working Papers w201714, Banco de Portugal, Economics and Research Department.
    13. Ana M. Fernandes & Peter J. Klenow & Sergii Meleshchuk & Denisse Pierola & Andrés Rodríguez-Clare, 2018. "The Intensive Margin in Trade," NBER Working Papers 25195, National Bureau of Economic Research, Inc.
    14. Erzo G.J. Luttmer, 2010. "Models of Growth and Firm Heterogeneity," Annual Review of Economics, Annual Reviews, vol. 2(1), pages 547-576, September.
    15. Marc J. Melitz & Stephen J. Redding, 2015. "New Trade Models, New Welfare Implications," American Economic Review, American Economic Association, vol. 105(3), pages 1105-1146, March.
    16. Pietro Garibaldi & Espen Moen & Dag-Einar Sommervoll, 2016. "Competitive On-the-job Search," Review of Economic Dynamics, Elsevier for the Society for Economic Dynamics, vol. 19, pages 88-107, January.
    17. Costas Arkolakis, 2016. "A Unified Theory of Firm Selection and Growth," The Quarterly Journal of Economics, President and Fellows of Harvard College, vol. 131(1), pages 89-155.
    18. repec:hal:wpspec:info:hdl:2441/dambferfb7dfprc9m01g1j1k2 is not listed on IDEAS
    19. Hu, Zhongzhong & Rodrigue, Joel & Tan, Yong & Yu, Chunhai, 2017. "Product churning, reallocation, and Chinese export growth," Journal of Economic Behavior & Organization, Elsevier, vol. 143(C), pages 147-164.
    20. repec:hal:spmain:info:hdl:2441/dambferfb7dfprc9m01g1j1k2 is not listed on IDEAS
    21. repec:spo:wpecon:info:hdl:2441/dambferfb7dfprc9m01g1j1k2 is not listed on IDEAS
    22. Dewitte, Ruben, 2020. "From Heavy-Tailed Micro to Macro: on the characterization of firm-level heterogeneity and its aggregation properties," MPRA Paper 103170, University Library of Munich, Germany.
    23. Martin Kliem & Alexander Kriwoluzky, 2014. "Toward a Taylor Rule for Fiscal Policy," Review of Economic Dynamics, Elsevier for the Society for Economic Dynamics, vol. 17(2), pages 294-302, April.

    More about this item

    JEL classification:

    • D92 - Microeconomics - - Micro-Based Behavioral Economics - - - Intertemporal Firm Choice, Investment, Capacity, and Financing
    • F16 - International Economics - - Trade - - - Trade and Labor Market Interactions
    • J62 - Labor and Demographic Economics - - Mobility, Unemployment, Vacancies, and Immigrant Workers - - - Job, Occupational and Intergenerational Mobility; Promotion
    • L11 - Industrial Organization - - Market Structure, Firm Strategy, and Market Performance - - - Production, Pricing, and Market Structure; Size Distribution of Firms

    NEP fields

    This paper has been announced in the following NEP Reports:

    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:nbr:nberwo:19492. 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: the person in charge (email available below). General contact details of provider: https://edirc.repec.org/data/nberrus.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.