This paper develops a model of trade that features heterogeneous firms, technology choice and different types of skilled labor in a general equilibrium framework. Its main contribution is to explain the impact of trade integration on technology adoption and wage inequalities. It also provides empirical evidence to support the model’s predictions using plant-level panel data from Chile’s manufac...

China’s college admission rose from one million in 1998 to seven million in 2009, and associated with the expansion is the declining college premium for young workers. However, the college premium for senior workers increased in the same period. We show that the rising demand for skilled workers is the driving force. To explain this, we build a general equilibrium theory that considers two dime...

This paper develops a two-country new trade theory framework with two types of labor (skilled and unskilled) and an imperfect labor market arising from country-specific real minimum wages. It examines welfare implications of trade liberalization and spillover effects of labor market shocks in a global economy. The model identifies two key forces that shape the results: i) external scale effects...

Do multinational Ž rms exhibit different patterns of labor demand from purely domestic Ž rms? Many standardmodels of trade and multinational companies suggest one such differencemay be labor-demand elasticities. For several reasons, multinationalsmay have more-elastic labor demands than do purely domestic Ž rms. In this paper we discuss the theory issues involved. We then present industry-level...

Background Regional, national and global goals for improving maternal and newborn health outcomes focus on skilled care during labor and childbirth. The purpose of this study was to assess competence of midwives in providing care during labor, childbirth and immediate postpartum period in public hospitals and health centers located in Amhara Region, Ethiopia

The author examines some aspects of the current situation concerning immigration to the United States. He predicts that the 1990s will witness the largest flow of immigrants into the population and labor force of any decade in the country's history; furthermore, since there is no universally accepted right to immigrate, the adoption of migration policy is one area of economic policymaking that ...

oman has made tremendous progress in the last four decades on the back of rising oil prices and this has led to substantial economic activity in oil, construction, industries and services sectors creating an unprecedented demand for labor ranging from professionals, technical experts, educators, highly skilled people in all vocations to low and semi-skilled people including cleaners, gardeners,...

What explains variation in individuals’ opposition to immigration? While scholars have consistently shown cultural concerns to be strong predictors of opposition, findings regarding the labor-market competition hypothesis are highly contested. To help understand these divergent results, we distinguish between the prevalence and conditional impact of determinants of immigration attitudes. Levera...

This paper contributes to the examination of factors that affect the decision to export of firms. Using a panel of firm-level data in Vietnam’s manufacturing sector, we test for the role of sunk costs and heterogeneous characteristics of firms in determining firms’ probability of exporting. Under a framework that controls for unobserved heterogeneity among firms, we find that the sunk entry cos...