[go: up one dir, main page]
IDEAS home Printed from https://ideas.repec.org/p/nbr/nberwo/6901.html
   My bibliography  Save this paper

Imperfect Labor Contracts and International Trade

Author

Listed:
  • Gene M. Grossman
Abstract
In an economy with imperfect labor contracts, differences in the distribution of human capital are an independent source of comparative advantage. I study a world economy with two sectors, one where output is produced by teams and another where individuals can work alone. When workers' abilities are private information and workers cannot verify the value of output or the level of a firm's profits, feasible labor contracts fail to generate efficient matching of workers within teams. The general equilibrium has the most talented workers opting for individualistic activities, while their less talented compatriots join teams. The team mismatches are more severe in the country with the more heterogeneous labor force, which generates a comparative disadvantage for this country in team production. Trade exacerbates the polarization' of the more diverse society. National income could be raised, and the distribution of income improved, by a marginal expansion in the size of the team sector.

Suggested Citation

  • Gene M. Grossman, 1999. "Imperfect Labor Contracts and International Trade," NBER Working Papers 6901, National Bureau of Economic Research, Inc.
    • Handle: RePEc:nbr:nberwo:6901
    Note: ITI
    as

    Download full text from publisher

    File URL: http://www.nber.org/papers/w6901.pdf
    Download Restriction: no
    ---><---

    Other versions of this item:

    References listed on IDEAS

    as
    1. Kiminori Matsuyama, 1992. "A Simple Model of Sectoral Adjustment," The Review of Economic Studies, Review of Economic Studies Ltd, vol. 59(2), pages 375-387.
    2. Giovanni Maggi & Gene M. Grossman, 2000. "Diversity and Trade," American Economic Review, American Economic Association, vol. 90(5), pages 1255-1275, December.
    3. repec:bla:scandj:v:97:y:1995:i:1:p:73-88 is not listed on IDEAS
    4. Weiss, Andrew W, 1980. "Job Queues and Layoffs in Labor Markets with Flexible Wages," Journal of Political Economy, University of Chicago Press, vol. 88(3), pages 526-538, June.
    5. Krugman, Paul R., 2000. "Technology, trade and factor prices," Journal of International Economics, Elsevier, vol. 50(1), pages 51-71, February.
    6. Kevin M. Murphy & Andrei Shleifer & Robert W. Vishny, 1991. "The Allocation of Talent: Implications for Growth," The Quarterly Journal of Economics, President and Fellows of Harvard College, vol. 106(2), pages 503-530.
    7. Malcomson, James M, 1981. "Unemployment and the Efficiency Wage Hypothesis," Economic Journal, Royal Economic Society, vol. 91(364), pages 848-866, December.
    8. Kremer, M & Maskin, E, 1996. "Wage Inequality and Segregation by Skill," Working papers 96-23, Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT), Department of Economics.
    9. Michael Kremer, 1993. "The O-Ring Theory of Economic Development," The Quarterly Journal of Economics, President and Fellows of Harvard College, vol. 108(3), pages 551-575.
    10. Mussa, Michael, 1982. "Imperfect factor mobility and the distribution of income," Journal of International Economics, Elsevier, vol. 12(1-2), pages 125-141, February.
    11. Patrick Legros & Andrew F. Newman, 2002. "Monotone Matching in Perfect and Imperfect Worlds," The Review of Economic Studies, Review of Economic Studies Ltd, vol. 69(4), pages 925-942.
    12. Robert E. Lucas Jr., 1978. "On the Size Distribution of Business Firms," Bell Journal of Economics, The RAND Corporation, vol. 9(2), pages 508-523, Autumn.
    13. Rosen, Sherwin, 1981. "The Economics of Superstars," American Economic Review, American Economic Association, vol. 71(5), pages 845-858, December.
    14. Milgrom, Paul & Roberts, John, 1990. "The Economics of Modern Manufacturing: Technology, Strategy, and Organization," American Economic Review, American Economic Association, vol. 80(3), pages 511-528, June.
    15. Ruffin, Roy J, 1988. "The Missing Link: The Ricardian Approach to the Factor Endowments Theory of Trade," American Economic Review, American Economic Association, vol. 78(4), pages 759-772, September.
    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. Evelyn Devadason, 2008. "China and India in World Trade: Are the Asia Giants a Threat to Malaysia?," Global Economic Review, Taylor & Francis Journals, vol. 37(4), pages 447-467.
    2. Strand, Jon, 2003. "The decline or expansion of unions: a bargaining model with heterogeneous labor," European Journal of Political Economy, Elsevier, vol. 19(2), pages 317-340, June.
    3. Bin Xu, 2003. "Trade and financial liberalization with asymmetric information in bank financing," Journal of Economic Policy Reform, Taylor & Francis Journals, vol. 6(2), pages 57-69.
    4. Jansen, Marion, 2000. "International trade and the position of European low-skilled labour," WTO Staff Working Papers ERAD-2000-01, World Trade Organization (WTO), Economic Research and Statistics Division.

    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. Gene Grossman, 2002. "The Distribution of Talent and the Pattern and Consequences of International Trade," CESifo Working Paper Series 745, CESifo.
    2. Christina Håkanson & Erik Lindqvist & Jonas Vlachos, 2021. "Firms and Skills: The Evolution of Worker Sorting," Journal of Human Resources, University of Wisconsin Press, vol. 56(2), pages 512-538.
    3. Garicano, Luis & Hubbard, Thomas N., 2012. "Learning about the nature of production from equilibrium assignment patterns," Journal of Economic Behavior & Organization, Elsevier, vol. 84(1), pages 136-153.
    4. Luis Garicano & Thomas N. Hubbard, 2016. "The Returns to Knowledge Hierarchies," The Journal of Law, Economics, and Organization, Oxford University Press, vol. 32(4), pages 653-684.
    5. Susana Iranzo & Fabiano Schivardi & Elisa Tosetti, 2008. "Skill Dispersion and Firm Productivity: An Analysis with Employer-Employee Matched Data," Journal of Labor Economics, University of Chicago Press, vol. 26(2), pages 247-285, April.
    6. Choi, Jaerim, 2023. "Offshoring, matching, and income inequality," Journal of Mathematical Economics, Elsevier, vol. 106(C).
    7. Jeon, Doh-Shin & Menicucci, Domenico, 2008. "Money, fame and the allocation of talent: Brain drain and the institution of science," Journal of Economic Behavior & Organization, Elsevier, vol. 66(3-4), pages 558-581, June.
    8. Giovanni Maggi & Gene M. Grossman, 2000. "Diversity and Trade," American Economic Review, American Economic Association, vol. 90(5), pages 1255-1275, December.
    9. Kuo-Hsing Kuo & Cheng-Te Lee & Chen Fang, 2014. "Free Trade and Economic Growth," Australian Economic Papers, Wiley Blackwell, vol. 53(1-2), pages 69-76, June.
    10. Volker Grossmann, 2003. "Managerial Job Assignment and Imperfect Competition in Asymmetric Equilibrium," CESifo Working Paper Series 914, CESifo.
    11. Maurice Kugler & Eric Verhoogen, 2012. "Prices, Plant Size, and Product Quality," The Review of Economic Studies, Review of Economic Studies Ltd, vol. 79(1), pages 307-339.
    12. Pol Antràs & Esteban Rossi-Hansberg, 2009. "Organizations and Trade," Annual Review of Economics, Annual Reviews, vol. 1(1), pages 43-64, May.
    13. Luis Garicano & Esteban Rossi-Hansberg, 2006. "Organization and Inequality in a Knowledge Economy," The Quarterly Journal of Economics, President and Fellows of Harvard College, vol. 121(4), pages 1383-1435.
    14. Ulrich Schetter & Oriol Tejada, 2019. "On Globalization and the Concentration of Talent," Growth Lab Working Papers 161, Harvard's Growth Lab.
    15. Gavilan, Angel, 2012. "Wage inequality, segregation by skill and the price of capital in an assignment model," European Economic Review, Elsevier, vol. 56(1), pages 116-137.
    16. Gene Grossman, 2013. "Heterogeneous workers and international trade," Review of World Economics (Weltwirtschaftliches Archiv), Springer;Institut für Weltwirtschaft (Kiel Institute for the World Economy), vol. 149(2), pages 211-245, June.
    17. Wanida Ngienthi & Yan Ma & Fumio Dei, 2013. "Supermodularity and Global Supply Chains without the South," Review of International Economics, Wiley Blackwell, vol. 21(3), pages 562-567, August.
    18. Job Boerma & Aleh Tsyvinski & Alexander P. Zimin, 2021. "Sorting with Teams," Papers 2109.02730, arXiv.org, revised Nov 2023.
    19. Ángel Gavilán, 2006. "Wage inequality, segregation by skill and the price of capital in an assignment model," Working Papers 0613, Banco de España.
    20. Schetter, Ulrich & Tejada, Oriol, 2018. "Globalization and the Concentration of Talent," VfS Annual Conference 2018 (Freiburg, Breisgau): Digital Economy 181562, Verein für Socialpolitik / German Economic Association.

    More about this item

    JEL classification:

    • F11 - International Economics - - Trade - - - Neoclassical Models of Trade
    • D51 - Microeconomics - - General Equilibrium and Disequilibrium - - - Exchange and Production Economies

    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:6901. 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.