International trade and labor-demand elasticities

• 成果类型: Article
• 署名作者: Slaughter, MJ
• 署名单位: Dartmouth College; National Bureau of Economic Research
• 刊物名称: JOURNAL OF INTERNATIONAL ECONOMICS
• ISSN/ISSBN: 0022-1996
• DOI: 10.1016/S0022-1996(00)00057-X
• 发表日期: 2001
• 页码: 27-56
• 关键词: Trade and labor market interactions; Demand for labor

摘要

In this paper I try to determine whether international trade has been increasing the own-price elasticity of demand for U.S. labor in recent decades. The empirical work yields three main results. First, from 1961 through 1991 demand for U.S. production labor became more elastic in manufacturing overall and in five of eight industries within manufacturing. Second, during this time U.S. nonproduction-labor demand did not become more elastic in manufacturing overall or in any of the eight industries within manufacturing. If anything, demand seems to be growing less elastic over time. Third, the hypothesis that trade contributed to increased elasticities has mixed support, at best. For production labor many trade-related variables have the predicted effect for specifications with only industry controls, but these predicted effects disappear when time controls are included as well. For nonproduction labor things are somewhat better, but time continues to be a very strong predictor of elasticity patterns. Thus the time series of labor-demand elasticities are explained largely by a residual, time itself. This result parallels the common finding in studies of rising wage inequality. Just as there seems to be a large unexplained residual for changing factor prices over time, there also seems to be a large unexplained residual for changing factor demand elasticities over time. (C) 2001 Elsevier Science B.V. All rights reserved.