A Mapping of Labor Mobility Costs in Developing Countries
Estimates of labor mobility costs are needed to assess the responses of employment and wages to trade shocks when factor adjustment is costly. Available methods to estimate those costs rely on panel data, which are seldom available in developing co...
| Main Authors: | , , |
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| Format: | Policy Research Working Paper |
| Language: | English English |
| Published: |
World Bank, Washington, D.C.
2013
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| Subjects: | |
| Online Access: | http://documents.worldbank.org/curated/en/2013/08/18081227/mapping-labor-mobility-costs-developing-countries http://hdl.handle.net/10986/15923 |
| Summary: | Estimates of labor mobility costs are
needed to assess the responses of employment and wages to
trade shocks when factor adjustment is costly. Available
methods to estimate those costs rely on panel data, which
are seldom available in developing countries. The authors
propose a method to estimate mobility costs using readily
obtainable data worldwide. The estimator matches the changes
in observed sectoral employment allocations with the
predicted allocations from a model of costly labor
adjustment. This paper estimates a world map of labor
mobility costs and uses those estimates to explore the
response of labor markets to trade policy. |
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