IDEAS home Printed from https://ideas.repec.org/p/sol/wpaper/05-010.html
   My bibliography  Save this paper

Trade and the skill-bias: it's not how much, but with whom you trade

Author

Listed:
  • Daniel Traca
  • Pushan Dutt

Abstract

This paper explores the hypothesis that changes in trading patterns and partners of US industries have contributed to skill deepening through defensive, skill-biased innovation. It draws on Thoenig and Verdier's (2003) assertion that, since skill-intensive technologies are less likely to be imitated, increased exposure to international competition promotes skill-biased innovation, due to the rise in the intensity of imitation by foreign firms. Our main proposition is that the rate of growth of a trading partner is related to the intensity of imitation from firms operating in that country, implying that an increase in the rate of growth of an industry's representative trading partner should contribute to the rise in its skill-intensity. We find empirical evidence in support of this notion, showing that the rise in the average growth rate of the trading partners has contributed to about 20% of the skilldeepening within US industries. By contrast, we find evidence that measures of the volume of trade do not matter significantly for the rise in skill-intensity, in line with existing literature.

Suggested Citation

  • Daniel Traca & Pushan Dutt, 2005. "Trade and the skill-bias: it's not how much, but with whom you trade," Working Papers CEB 05-010.RS, ULB -- Universite Libre de Bruxelles.
    • Handle: RePEc:sol:wpaper:05-010
    as

    Download full text from publisher

    File URL: https://dipot.ulb.ac.be/dspace/bitstream/2013/9267/1/dt-0024.pdf
    File Function: dt-0024
    Download Restriction: no
    ---><---

    Other versions of this item:

    References listed on IDEAS

    as
    1. Robert C. Feenstra & Gordon H. Hanson, 1999. "The Impact of Outsourcing and High-Technology Capital on Wages: Estimates For the United States, 1979–1990," The Quarterly Journal of Economics, President and Fellows of Harvard College, vol. 114(3), pages 907-940.
    2. Feenstra, Robert C & Hanson, Gordon H, 1996. "Globalization, Outsourcing, and Wage Inequality," American Economic Review, American Economic Association, vol. 86(2), pages 240-245, May.
    3. Adrian Wood, 1997. "How Trade Hurt Unskilled Workers," Palgrave Macmillan Books, in: Jitendralal Borkakoti & Chris Milner (ed.), International Trade and Labour Markets, chapter 7, pages 140-168, Palgrave Macmillan.
    4. Haskel, Jonathan & Slaughter, Matthew J, 2001. "Trade, Technology and U.K. Wage Inequality," Economic Journal, Royal Economic Society, vol. 111(468), pages 163-187, January.
    5. William Easterly & Ross Levine, 2002. "It´s Not Factor Accumulation: Stylized Facts and Growth Models," Central Banking, Analysis, and Economic Policies Book Series, in: Norman Loayza & Raimundo Soto & Norman Loayza (Series Editor) & Klaus Schmidt-Hebbel (Series Editor) (ed.),Economic Growth: Sources, Trends, and Cycles, edition 1, volume 6, chapter 3, pages 061-114, Central Bank of Chile.
    6. Wood, Adrian, 1998. "Globalisation and the Rise in Labour Market Inequalities," Economic Journal, Royal Economic Society, vol. 108(450), pages 1463-1482, September.
    7. Josh Lerner, 2002. "150 Years of Patent Protection," American Economic Review, American Economic Association, vol. 92(2), pages 221-225, May.
    8. Eric J. Bartelsman & Wayne Gray, 1996. "The NBER Manufacturing Productivity Database," NBER Technical Working Papers 0205, National Bureau of Economic Research, Inc.
    9. Eli Berman & John Bound & Zvi Griliches, 1994. "Changes in the Demand for Skilled Labor within U. S. Manufacturing: Evidence from the Annual Survey of Manufactures," The Quarterly Journal of Economics, President and Fellows of Harvard College, vol. 109(2), pages 367-397.
    10. Daron Acemoglu, 2002. "Directed Technical Change," The Review of Economic Studies, Review of Economic Studies Ltd, vol. 69(4), pages 781-809.
    11. Wood Júnior, Thomaz, 1995. "Workers," RAE - Revista de Administração de Empresas, FGV-EAESP Escola de Administração de Empresas de São Paulo (Brazil), vol. 35(2), March.
    12. Robert Feenstra & Gordon Hanson, 2001. "Global Production Sharing and Rising Inequality: A Survey of Trade and Wages," NBER Working Papers 8372, National Bureau of Economic Research, Inc.
    13. Bernard, Andrew B. & Jensen, J. Bradford, 1997. "Exporters, skill upgrading, and the wage gap," Journal of International Economics, Elsevier, vol. 42(1-2), pages 3-31, February.
    14. Robert E. Baldwin & Glen G. Cain, 2000. "Shifts In Relative U.S. Wages: The Role Of Trade, Technology, And Factor Endowments," The Review of Economics and Statistics, MIT Press, vol. 82(4), pages 580-595, November.
    15. Krugman, Paul R., 2000. "Technology, trade and factor prices," Journal of International Economics, Elsevier, vol. 50(1), pages 51-71, February.
    16. Haskel, Jonathan E. & Slaughter, Matthew J., 2002. "Does the sector bias of skill-biased technical change explain changing skill premia?," European Economic Review, Elsevier, vol. 46(10), pages 1757-1783, December.
    17. Jeffrey D. Sachs & Howard J. Shatz, 1994. "Trade and Jobs in Manufacturing," Brookings Papers on Economic Activity, Economic Studies Program, The Brookings Institution, vol. 25(1), pages 1-84.
    18. André Sapir & Mathias Dewatripont & Khalid Sekkat, 1999. "Trade and jobs in Europe: much ado about nothing?," ULB Institutional Repository 2013/8076, ULB -- Universite Libre de Bruxelles.
    19. Dewatripont, Mathias & Sapir, Andre & Sekkat, Khalid (ed.), 1999. "Trade and Jobs in Europe: Much Ado About Nothing?," OUP Catalogue, Oxford University Press, number 9780198293606.
    20. David H. Autor & Lawrence F. Katz & Alan B. Krueger, 1998. "Computing Inequality: Have Computers Changed the Labor Market?," The Quarterly Journal of Economics, President and Fellows of Harvard College, vol. 113(4), pages 1169-1213.
    21. Thibaut Desjonqueres & Stephen Machin & John Van Reenen, 1999. "Another Nail in the Coffin? Or Can the Trade Based Explanation of Changing Skill Structures Be Resurrected?," Scandinavian Journal of Economics, Wiley Blackwell, vol. 101(4), pages 533-554, December.
    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. Zsoka Koczan & Alexander Plekhanov, 2013. "How important are non-tariff barriers? Complementarity of infrastructure and institutions of trading partners," Working Papers 159, European Bank for Reconstruction and Development, Office of the Chief Economist.
    2. Akiyama, Taro & Furukawa, Yuichi, 2009. "Intellectual property rights and appropriability of innovation," Economics Letters, Elsevier, vol. 103(3), pages 138-141, June.

    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. Pushan Dutt & Daniel Traça, 2010. "With whom do you trade? Defensive innovation and the skill‐bias," Canadian Journal of Economics/Revue canadienne d'économique, John Wiley & Sons, vol. 43(4), pages 1198-1220, November.
    2. Rosario Crinò, 2009. "Offshoring, Multinationals And Labour Market: A Review Of The Empirical Literature," Journal of Economic Surveys, Wiley Blackwell, vol. 23(2), pages 197-249, April.
    3. Jorge Saba Arbache, 2001. "Trade Liberalisation and Labor Markets in Developing Countries: Theory and Evidence," Studies in Economics 0112, School of Economics, University of Kent.
    4. Manasse, Paolo & Stanca, Luca & Turrini, Alessandro, 2004. "Wage premia and skill upgrading in Italy: why didn't the hound bark?," Labour Economics, Elsevier, vol. 11(1), pages 59-83, February.
    5. Dumont, Michel, 2004. "The Impact of International Trade with Newly Industrialised Countries on the Wages and Employment of Low-Skilled and High-Skilled Workers in the European Union," Thesis Commons bmxag, Center for Open Science.
    6. Jonathan E. Haskel, 2000. "Trade and Labor Approaches to Wage Inequality," Review of International Economics, Wiley Blackwell, vol. 8(3), pages 397-408, August.
    7. Hoekman & Bernard & Winters, L. Alan, 2005. "Trade and employment : stylized facts and research findings," Policy Research Working Paper Series 3676, The World Bank.
    8. Lisandro Abrego & John Whalley, 1999. "The Choice of Structural Model in Trade-Wages Decompositions," CSGR Working papers series 34/99, Centre for the Study of Globalisation and Regionalisation (CSGR), University of Warwick.
    9. Hijzen, Alexander & Görg, Holger & Hine, Robert C., 2003. "International Fragmentation and Relative Wages in the UK," IZA Discussion Papers 717, Institute of Labor Economics (IZA).
    10. Robert Stehrer, 2004. "Can Trade Explain the Sector Bias of Skill-biased Technical Change?," wiiw Working Papers 30, The Vienna Institute for International Economic Studies, wiiw.
    11. Sabine Engelmann, 2014. "International trade, technological change and wage inequality in the UK economy," Empirica, Springer;Austrian Institute for Economic Research;Austrian Economic Association, vol. 41(2), pages 223-246, May.
    12. Thomas Kemeny & David Rigby, 2012. "Trading away what kind of jobs? Globalization, trade and tasks in the US economy," Review of World Economics (Weltwirtschaftliches Archiv), Springer;Institut für Weltwirtschaft (Kiel Institute for the World Economy), vol. 148(1), pages 1-16, April.
    13. Nathalie Chusseau & Michel Dumont & Joël Hellier, 2008. "Explaining Rising Inequality: Skill‐Biased Technical Change And North–South Trade," Journal of Economic Surveys, Wiley Blackwell, vol. 22(3), pages 409-457, July.
    14. Toshie Ikenaga & Ryo Kambayashi, 2016. "Task Polarization in the Japanese Labor Market: Evidence of a Long-Term Trend," Industrial Relations: A Journal of Economy and Society, Wiley Blackwell, vol. 55(2), pages 267-293, April.
    15. Haskel, Jonathan E. & Slaughter, Matthew J., 2002. "Does the sector bias of skill-biased technical change explain changing skill premia?," European Economic Review, Elsevier, vol. 46(10), pages 1757-1783, December.
    16. Tommaso Tempesti, 2016. "Offshoring and the Skill-premium: Evidence from Individual Workers’ Data," The World Economy, Wiley Blackwell, vol. 39(10), pages 1628-1652, October.
    17. Rigby, D L & Breau, Sebastien, 2007. "Impacts of Trade on Wage Quality in Los Angeles: Analysis Using Matched Employer-Employee Data," Center for Global, International and Regional Studies, Working Paper Series qt0fh5z1hf, Center for Global, International and Regional Studies, UC Santa Cruz.
    18. David H. Autor & Lawrence F. Katz & Alan B. Krueger, 1998. "Computing Inequality: Have Computers Changed the Labor Market?," The Quarterly Journal of Economics, President and Fellows of Harvard College, vol. 113(4), pages 1169-1213.
    19. Robert Feenstra & Gordon Hanson, 2001. "Global Production Sharing and Rising Inequality: A Survey of Trade and Wages," NBER Working Papers 8372, National Bureau of Economic Research, Inc.
    20. Piva, Mariacristina & Santarelli, Enrico & Vivarelli, Marco, 2005. "The skill bias effect of technological and organisational change: Evidence and policy implications," Research Policy, Elsevier, vol. 34(2), pages 141-157, March.

    More about this item

    Keywords

    Trade and Wages; Skill Bias; Defensive Innovation.;
    All these keywords.

    JEL classification:

    • F14 - International Economics - - Trade - - - Empirical Studies of Trade
    • F16 - International Economics - - Trade - - - Trade and Labor Market Interactions
    • J31 - Labor and Demographic Economics - - Wages, Compensation, and Labor Costs - - - Wage Level and Structure; Wage Differentials

    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:sol:wpaper:05-010. 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: Benoit Pauwels (email available below). General contact details of provider: https://edirc.repec.org/data/cebulbe.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.