Abstract
This paper investigates the impact of international trade on wage dispersion in a small open economy, Belgium. It is one of the few to: (i) use detailed, matched employer-employee data to compute industry wage premia and disaggregated industry-level panel data to examine the impact of changes in international trade on changes in wage differentials, (ii) simultaneously analyse both imports and exports, and (iii) examine the impact of imports according to the country of origin. Looking at the export side, we find (on the basis of the system generalized method of moments estimator) a positive effect of exports on industry wage premia. The results also show that import penetration has a significant and negative impact on industry wage differentials. However, the detrimental effect of imports on wages is found to be significantly greater when imports originate from low- and middle-income countries than from high-income countries.
This is a preview of subscription content, log in via an institution to check access.
Similar content being viewed by others
Notes
Another strand of the literature investigates how trade reforms affect inter-industry wage differentials primarily in developing countries (Robertson 2000; Feliciano 2001; Hasan and Chen 2003; Pavcnik et al. 2004; Goldberg and Pavcnik 2005; Dutta 2007). For example, Dutta (2007) examines the link between tariff reduction and industry wage premia in India. He finds that high-tariff industries offer higher wage premia. A similar result is found for Colombia by Goldberg and Pavcnik (2005), when industry fixed effects are included in the analysis. Jean and Nicoletti (2002) also report a positive impact of tariffs on wages using panel data for 12 OECD countries. In contrast, Pavcnik et al. (2004) obtain no significant effect between changes in trade policy and changes in industry wage premia in Brazil.
However, Lundin and Yun (2009) results only refer to ordinary least squares (OLS) estimates that are likely to be biased.
Indeed, at least two econometric problems arise when current profits are used to estimate the wage-profit elasticity. First, there is an accounting relationship between wages and current profits: if wages increase, profits (i.e. value-added minus remuneration of labour) automatically decrease. Therefore, OLS estimates of rent sharing are likely to be downward biased. Second, a positive relationship between wages and current profits may arise because higher wages can provide employees with incentives to step up their effort (cf. efficiency wage theories). This would lead to an upward biased estimation of rent sharing. To sum up, OLS estimates of wage-profit elasticity might be biased and inconsistent due to simultaneity problems between wages and current profits. To account for this issue, two-stage least squares (2SLS) is generally applied using instruments for contemporaneous profits. Instruments used in the literature to control for the endogeneity of profits include: lagged profits, the degree of market competition, prices of imports and exports, exchange rate variations, past technological innovations and sales.
However, it should be noted that more competitive arguments can also be put forward. Lawrence (2000), for instance, argues that trade may change the wage structure through its impact on technology and TFP. Moreover, Lovely and Richardson (1998) emphasize that trade can influence the return to skills and therefore also the wage structure.
The Belgian labour market is characterized by a relatively high trade union density, a large collective bargaining coverage rate, industry bargaining (essentially) and a national minimum wage. Given these features, we believe that non-competitive mechanisms have a strong potential in explaining the impact of international trade on the wage structure. This intuition is also supported by the fact that Goos and Konings (2001), Rycx and Tojerow (2004) and Rusinek and Rycx (2012) provide empirical evidence for the existence of rent-sharing in the Belgian private sector and that Du Caju et al. (2011) show that this rent-sharing phenomenon accounts for a significant part of inter-industry wage differentials.
Dutta (2007) and Martins and Opromolla (2009) put forward another mechanism that can take place in a labour market with non-competitive features. In this case, rent sharing follows the impact of trade changes on industry- or firm- level productivity, thereby changing industry-relative wages. This explanation concerns precisely more imports of inputs than overall imports of any kind of goods. Access to higher-quality or cheaper intermediate inputs results in higher profits and, hence, in higher wages.
In the case of the standard Hecksher–Ohlin–Samuelson model, inter-industry wage differentials are difficult to explain since factors are mobile and their prices equalize across industries.
Due to its cross-sectional nature, workers cannot be followed across time within or between firms.
The SES is conducted on the basis of a two-stage random sampling approach of enterprises or local units (first stage) and employees (second stage). The establishments, randomly chosen from the population, report data on a random sample of their workforce. The SES is thus a stratified sample. The stratification criteria refer to the region where the local unit is located (NUTS categories), the principal economic activity (NACE groups) and the size of the local unit (this size is determined by data collected from the Social Security Organisation). Sampling percentages of local units depend positively on the size of the unit. Within a local unit, the number of workers to be considered also depends on size, but negatively. Because of this sampling strategy, weights have to be used to extrapolate employees and local units in the sample to the entire stratum. For more details see Demunter (2000).
Annual bonuses include irregular payments which do not occur during each pay period, such as pay for holidays, 13th month or profit-sharing.
Descriptive statistics relative to the merged SES-SBS samples are reported in Table 8 in the Appendix.
Total turnover and output are extracted from the firms’ annual accounts.
Time dummies are considered as exogenous and we use respectively first and second lags and second and third lags of other explanatory variables as instruments.
Results from the wage regressions are reported in Table 9 in the Appendix.
The complete set of results, i.e. the 139 inter-industry wage differentials estimated for each year, are available upon request.
In order to get the difference in percentage terms between the wage (in EUR) of the average worker in sector k and the employment-share weighted mean wage (in EUR) in the economy, the following expressions have been computed : \( V_{k} = [(\exp (\hat{\psi }_{k} )-1)-{G}] \) for k = 1,…,K and V K+1 = −G; where \( G = \sum\nolimits_{k = 1}^{K} {\bar{p}_{k} [\exp (\hat{\psi }_{k} ) - 1]} \) and \( \bar{p}_{k} \)’s are sectoral employment shares. This transformation is necessary because the estimated wage equation has a semi-logarithmic form, so that inter-industry wage differentials, calculated from Eq. (1), are initially expressed in log point form (for a discussion see Araï et al. 1996 or Reilly and Zanchi 2003).
See Du Caju et al. (2011) for detailed analysis of inter-industry wage differentials in Belgium.
Yet, it could be argued that the unobserved quality of the labour force is not randomly distributed across sectors. In other words, high-paying industries might simply be those in which the non-observed quality of the labour force is the highest. To examine this issue, we applied Martins’ (2004) methodology to all the waves of the SES-SBS from 1999 to 2006. This boils down to the estimation of extended quantile wage regressions, controlling for a large number of variables, at the mean and at the 10th and 90th percentiles of the wage distribution. Martins’ methodology is based on the following reasoning. On the one hand, workers with better unobserved characteristics (e.g. ability, motivation, industry-specific skills) are likely to be found at the top of the wage distribution. On the other hand, according to the unobserved quality explanation, workers with better unmeasured characteristics are over-represented in high-wage sectors. As a result, if the unobserved quality explanation is valid, we would expect: (i) industry wage differentials to be larger at the top end of the wage distribution and (ii) the difference in industry wage premia across the wage distribution to be larger in high-wage sectors than in low-wage sectors. Empirical results (available on request) suggest that the contribution of unobserved ability to inter-industry wage differentials in Belgium is limited and hence that other explanations deserve to be investigated. However, this conclusion should be taken with caution as Martin’s test relies on specific assumptions regarding, e.g. the behaviour of low-skilled workers (they are implicitly assumed to be present in all industries) and the return to unobserved ability (it is implicitly supposed to be invariant across industries). Hence, it might be useful in future research to re-examine the unobserved ability hypothesis in a more standard way, i.e. by computing industry wage premia on the basis of a wage equation including worker fixed effects so as to control for unobserved worker heterogeneity (which may be correlated with the export share). This option requires detailed linked employer-employee panel data (tracking workers and firms over time) that unfortunately do not exist for Belgium at this moment.
The positive impact of exports on industry wage premia should be interpreted with caution. Indeed, our data do not allow us to control for a possible self-selection bias, i.e. for the fact that higher wages in exporting firms may (at least partially) be due to the self-selection of more productive firms, with better wages, into export markets. For more evidence on this potential issue see Fryges and Wagner (2010), Greenaway and Kneller (2007), Melitz (2003), Schank et al. (2010) or Yang and Mallick (2010).
These groups are based on the World Bank Analytical Classification presented in World Development Indicators (GNI per capita in US$ Atlas method: gross national income divided by mid-year population).
These results also hold with standardized regression coefficients that show directly the relative importance of the country of origin (see Table 10 in the Appendix). In other words, the difference between low-income and high-income countries persists after standardizing all the variables.
However, it should be noted that differences in results for exports are probably not due to the absence of industry fixed effects in the specification of Lundin and Yun (2009). As highlighted by an anonymous referee, “this would imply that unobserved heterogeneity is negatively correlated with exports, whereas they are typically thought of as positively correlated. Indeed, at least for Belgium, the exclusion of industry fixed effects increases the parameter estimates.”
References
Abowd, J., & Allain, L. (1996). Compensation structure and product market competition. Annales d’Economie et de Statistique, 41(42), 207–217.
Abowd, J., Kramarz, F., & Margolis, D. (1999). High wage workers and high wage firms. Econometrica, 67(4), 251–333.
Abowd, J., & Lemieux, Th. (1993). The effects of product market competition on collective bargaining agreements: The case of foreign competition in Canada. Quarterly Journal of Economics, 108(4), 983–1014.
Abraham, F., Konings, J., & Vanormelingen, S. (2009). The effect of globalization on union bargaining and price-cost margins of firms. Review of World Economics/Weltwirtschaftliches Archives, 145(1), 13–36.
Araï, M. (2003). Wages, profits and, capital intensity, evidence from matched worker-firm data. Journal of Labor Economics, 21(3), 593–618.
Araï, M., Ballot, G., & Skalli, A. (1996). Différentiels intersectoriels de salaire et caractéristiques des employeurs en France. Economie et statistique, 299, 37–58.
Arellano, M., & Bond, S. (1991). Some tests of specification for panel data: Monte Carlo evidence and an application to employment equations. Review of Economic Studies, 58(2), 277–297.
Arellano, M., & Bover, O. (1995). Another look at the instrumental variable estimation of error-components models. Journal of Econometrics, 68(1), 29–51.
Barth, E., & Zweimüller, J. (1992). Labour market institutions and the industry wage distribution: Evidence from Austria, Norway and the U.S. Empirica, 19(2), 181–201.
Baumgarten, D. (2010). Exporters and the rise in wage inequality: Evidence from German linked employer-employee data. (Ruhr Economic Papers 217). Bochum, Dortmund, Duisburg, Essen: Ruhr Graduate School in Economics.
Benito, A. (2000). Inter-industry wage differentials in Great Britain. Oxford Bulletin of Economics and Statistics, 62, 727–746.
Bernard, A., Jensen, J., & Schott, P. (2006). Survival of the best fit: Exposure to low wage countries and the (uneven) growth of US manufacturing plants. Journal of International Economics, 68, 219–237.
Bertrand, M. (2004). From the invisible handshake to the invisible hand? How import competition changes the employment relationship. Journal of Labor Economics, 22(4), 723–764.
Björklund, A., Bratsberg, B., Eriksson, T., Jäntti, M., & Raaum, O. (2007). Inter-industry wage differentials and unobserved ability: Siblings evidence from five Countries. Industrial Relations, 46(1), 171–202.
Blanchflower, D., Oswald, A., & Sanfey, P. (1996). Wages, profits and rent-sharing. Quarterly Journal of Economics, 111(1), 227–251.
Blundell, R., & Bond, S. (1998). Initial conditions and moment restrictions in dynamics panel data models. Journal of Econometrics, 87, 115–143.
Borjas, G., & Ramey, V. (1995). Foreign competition, market power and wage inequality. Quarterly Journal of Economics, 110, 1075–1110.
Budd, J., & Slaughter, M. (2004). Are profits shared across borders? Evidence on international rent sharing. Journal of Labor Economics, 22(3), 525–552.
Card, D. (1996). The effect of unions on the structural of wages: A longitudinal analysis. Econometrica, 64(4), 957–979.
Carruth, A., Collier, W., & Dickerson, A. (2004). Inter-industry wage differences and individual heterogeneity. Oxford Bulletin of Economics and Statistics, 55(5), 811–846.
Christofides, L., & Oswald, A. (1992). Real wage determination and rent-sharing in collective bargaining agreements. Quarterly Journal of Economics, 107(3), 985–1002.
Crépon, B., Desplatz, R., & Mairesse, J. (2007). Price-cost margins and rent sharing: Evidence from a panel of French manufacturing firms. Paris: CREST, mimeo.
Cunãt, V., & Guadalupe, M. (2009). Globalization, and the provision of incentives inside the firm: The effect of foreign competition. Journal of Labor Economics, 27(2), 179–212.
De Loecker, J. (2007). Product differentiation, multi-product firms and estimating the impact of trade liberalization on productivity. (NBER Working Paper 13155). Cambridge, MA: National Bureau of Economic Research.
Demunter, C. (2000). Structure and distribution of earnings survey. (Statistics Belgium Working Paper). Brussels: Statistics Belgium.
Dickens, W., & Katz, L. (1987). Inter-industry wage differences and industry characteristics. In K. Lang & J. Leonard (Eds.), Unemployment and the structure of labour markets (pp. 28–89). Oxford: Basil Blackwell.
Du Caju, P., Katay, G., Lamo, A., Nicolitsas, D., & Poelhekke, S. (2010). Inter-industry wage differentials in EU Countries: What do cross-Country time varying data add to the picture? Journal of the European Economic Association: Papers and Proceedings, 8(2–3), 478–486.
Du Caju, P., Rycx, F., & Tojerow, I. (2011). Inter-industry wage differentials: How much does rent-sharing matter? Manchester School, 79(4), 691–717.
Dutta, P. (2007). Trade protection and industry wages in India. Industrial and Labor Relations Review, 60(2), 268–286.
Edin, P.-A., & Zetterberg, J. (1992). Interindustry wage differentials: Evidence from Sweden and a comparison with the USA. American Economic Review: Papers and Proceedings, 82(5), 1341–1349.
Eurostat. (2011). Europe in figures: Eurostat yearbook 2011. Luxembourg: Publications Office of the European Union.
Fakhfakh, F., & FitzRoy, F. (2004). Basic wages and firm characteristics: Rent-sharing in French manufacturing. Labour, 18(4), 615–631.
Feliciano, Z. (2001). Workers and trade liberalization: the impact of trade reforms in Mexico on wages and employment. Industrial and Labor Relations Review, 55(1), 95–115.
Freeman, R. (1995). Are your wages set in Beijing? Journal of Economic Perspectives, 9(3), 15–32.
Frias, J., Kaplanz, D., & Verhoogen, E. (2009). Exports and wage premia: Evidence from Mexican employer-employee data. Columbia University mimeo.
Fryges, H., & Wagner, J. (2010). Exports and profitability: First evidence for German manufacturing firms. World Economy, 33(3), 399–423.
Gannon, B., Plasman, R., Rycx, F., & Tojerow, I. (2007). Inter-industry wage differentials and the gender wage gap: Evidence from European Countries. Economic and Social Review, 38(1), 135–155.
Gaston, N., & Trefler, D. (1994). Protection, trade and wages: Evidence from U.S. manufacturing. Industrial and Labor Relations Review, 47(4), 574–593.
Gibbons, R., & Katz, L. (1992). Does unmeasured ability explain interindustry wage differentials? Review of Economic Studies, 59(3), 515–535.
Goldberg, P., & Pavcnik, N. (2005). Trade, wages and the political economy of trade protection: Evidence from the Colombian trade reforms. Journal of International Economics, 66, 75–105.
Goos, M., & Konings, J. (2001). Does rent-sharing exist in Belgium? An empirical analysis using firm level data. Reflets et Perspectives de la vie économique XL(1/2), 65–79.
Goux, D., & Maurin, E. (1999). Persistence of inter-industry wage differentials: A reexamination using matched worker-firm panel data. Journal of Labor Economics, 17(3), 492–533.
Greenaway, D., & Kneller, D. (2007). Firm heterogeneity, exporting and foreign direct investment: A survey. Economic Journal, 117(517), F134–F161.
Greenwald, B. (1983). A general analysis of bias in the estimated standard errors of least square coefficients. Journal of Econometrics, 22(3), 323–338.
Grey, A. (1993). Inter-industry wage differentials in manufacturing: Rents and industrial structure. Canadian Journal of Economics, 26(3), 525–535.
Guadalupe, M. (2007). Product market competition, returns to skill and wage inequality. Journal of Labor Economics, 25(3), 439–474.
Haisken-DeNew, J., & Schmidt, C. (1997). Inter-industry and inter-region differentials: Mechanics and interpretation. Review of Economics and Statistics, 79(3), 516–521.
Hall, R. (1988). The relation between price and marginal cost in U.S. industry. Journal of Political Economy, 96(5), 921–947.
Hansen, L. (1982). Large sample properties of generalized method of moments estimators. Econometrica, 50(4), 1029–1054.
Hartog, J., Pereira, P., & Vieira, J. (2000). Inter-industry wage dispersion in Portugal. Empirica, 27(4), 353–364.
Hartog, J., Van Opstal, R., & Teulings, C. (1997). Inter-industry wage differentials and tenure effects in the Netherlands and the U.S. De Economist, 145(1), 91–99.
Hasan, R., & Chen, L. (2003). Trade and workers: Evidence from the Philippines. (Economics Study Area Working Papers 61). Honolulu: East-West Center, Economics Study Area.
Helwege, J. (1992). Sectoral shifts and interindustry wage differentials. Journal of Labor Economics, 10(1), 55–84.
Hildreth, A., & Oswald, A. (1997). Rent-sharing and wages: Evidence from company and establishment panels. Journal of Labor Economics, 15(2), 318–337.
Hirsch, B. (1993). Trucking deregulation and labor earnings: Is the union premium a compensating differential? Journal of Labor Economics, 11(2), 279–301.
Hoekman, B., & Winters, A. (2005). Trade and employment: Stylized facts and research findings. (UN/DESA Working Paper 7). United Nations, Department of Economics and Social Affairs.
Holmlund, B., & Zetterberg, J. (1991). Insider effects in wage determination: Evidence from five countries. European Economic Review, 35(5), 1009–1034.
Jean, S., & Nicoletti, G. (2002). Product market regulation and wage premia in Europe and North America: An empirical investigation. (OECD Economics Department Working Paper 2002/2004). OECD Publishing.
Kahn, L. (1998). Collective bargaining and interindustry wage structure, international evidence. Economica, 65(260), 507–534.
Katz, L., Summers, L. Hall, R., Schultze, C., & Topel, R. (1989). Industry rents: Evidence and implications. Brookings Papers on Economic Activity, (Microeconomics), 209–290.
Katz, L., & Summers, L. (1989). Industry rents: Evidence and implications. Brookings Papers on Economic Activity, (Microeconomics), 209–275.
Klein, M. W., Moser, C., & Urban, D. M. (2010). The contribution of trade to wage inequality: The role of skill, gender and nationality. (NBER Working Paper 15985). Cambridge, MA: National Bureau of Economic Research.
Kramarz, F. (2008). Offshoring, wages, and employment: Evidence from data matching imports, firms, and workers. (CREST Working Paper).
Krueger, A., & Summers, L. (1988). Efficiency wages and inter-industry wage structure. Econometrica, 56(2), 259–293.
Kugler, M., & Verhoogen, E. (2009). Plants and imported inputs: New facts and an interpretation. American Economic Review Papers and Proceedings, 99(2), 501–507.
Lawrence, R. (2000). Does a kick in the pants get you going or does it just hurt? The impact of international competition on technological change in U.S. manufacturing. In R. Feenstra (Ed.), The Impact of international trade on wages (pp. 197–224). Chicago: University of Chicago Press.
Lindbeck, A., & Snower, D. (1990). Interindustry wage structure and the power of incumbent workers. In R. Brunetta, C. Dell’Aringa (Eds.), Labour relations and economic performance (pp. 378–390). London: Macmillan.
Lovely, M., & Richardson, J. (1998). Trade flows and wage premiums: Does who or what matter? (NBER Working Paper 6668). Cambridge, MA: National Bureau of Economic Research.
Lundin, N., & Yun, L. (2009). International trade and inter-industry wage structure in Swedish manufacturing: Evidence from matched employer-employee data. Review of International Economics, 17(1), 87–102.
Magda, I., Rycx, F., Tojerow, I., & Valsamis, D. (2011). Wage differentials across sectors in Europe. An East-West comparison. Economics of Transition, 19(4), 749–769.
Margolis, D., Salvanes, K. (2001). Do firms really share rents with their workers? (CREST Working Paper 16).
Martins, P. (2004). Industry wage premia, evidence from the wage distribution. Economics Letters, 83, 157–163.
Martins, P. (2009). Rent sharing before and after the wage bill. Applied Economics, 41(17), 2133–2155.
Martins, P., & Opromolla, L. (2009). Exports, imports and wages: evidence from matched firm-worker-product panels. (IZA Discussion Paper 4646). Bonn: Institute for the Study of Labor.
Melitz, M. (2003). The impact of trade on intra-industry reallocations and aggregate industry productivity. Econometrica, 71(6), 1695–1725.
Moulton, B. (1990). An illustration of a pitfall in estimating the effects of aggregate variables on micro units. Review of Economics and Statistics, 72(2), 334–338.
Munch, J., & Skaksen, J. (2008). Human capital and wages in exporting firms. Journal of International Economics, 75, 363–372.
NBB (National Bank of Belgium) (2007). NBB international trade. Brussels.
OECD (Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development) (2009). National accounts. Paris.
Pavcnik, N., Blom, A., Goldberg, P., & Schady, N. (2004). Trade liberalization and industry wage structure: Evidence from Brazil. World Bank Economic Review, 18(3), 319–344.
Reilly, K., & Zanchi, L. (2003). Industry wage differentials: How many, big and significant? International Journal of Manpower, 24(4), 367–398.
Revenga, A. (1992). Exporting jobs? The impact of import competition on employment and wages in U.S. manufacturing. Quarterly Journal of Economics, 107(1), 255–284.
Robertson, R. (2000). Trade liberalization and wage inequality: Lessons from the Mexican experience. World Economy, 23(6), 827–849.
Rodrik, D. (1997). Has globalization gone too far? Washington, DC: Institute for International Economics.
Rose, N. (1987). Labor rent sharing and regulation: Evidence from the trucking industry. Journal of Political Economy, 95(6), 1146–1178.
Rusinek, M., & Rycx, F. (2012). Rent sharing under different bargaining regimes: Evidence from linked employer-employee data. British Journal of Industrial Relations (forthcoming).
Rycx, F., & Tojerow, I. (2004). Rent sharing and the gender wage gap in Belgium. International Journal of Manpower, 25(3–4), 279–299.
Salvanes, K., Burgess, S., & Lane, J. (1998). Source of earnings dispersion in a linked employer-employee dataset: Evidence from Norway. (Working Paper 22/98). Bergen: Norwegian School of Economics and Business Administration.
Schank, T., Schnabel, C., & Wagner, J. (2007). Do exporters really pay higher wages? First evidence from German linked employer-employee data. Journal of International Economics, 72, 2–74.
Schank, T., Schnabel, C., & Wagner, J. (2010). Higher wages in exporting firms: Self-selection, export effect, or both? First evidence from linked employer-employee data. Review of World Economics/Weltwirtschaftliches Archives, 146(2), 303–322.
Slaughter, M. (1999). Globalisation and wages: A tale of two perspectives. World Economy, 22, 609–630.
Statistics Belgium (2007a). Structure of business survey (SBS). Brussels.
Statistics Belgium (2007b). Structure of earnings survey (SES). Brussels.
Teulings, C., & Hartog, J. (1998). Corporatism or competition? Labour contracts, institutions and wage structures in international comparison. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.
Thaler, R. (1989). Anomalies: Interindustry wage differentials. Journal of Economic Perspectives, 3(2), 181–193.
Vainiomäki, J., & Laaksonen, S. (1995). Interindustry wage differentials in Finland: Evidence from longitudinal census data for 1975–1985. Labour Economics, 2(2), 161–173.
Van Biesebroeck, J. (2005). Exporting raises productivity in Sub-Saharan African manufacturing firms. Journal of International Economics, 67(2), 373–391.
Van Reenen, J. (1996). The creation and capture of rents: Wages and innovation in a panel of U.K. companies. Quarterly Journal of Economics, 111(1), 195–226.
Verhoogen, E. (2008). Trade, quality upgrading and wage inequality in the Mexican manufacturing sector. Quarterly Journal of Economics, 123(2), 489–530.
Walsh, F. (1999). A multisector model of efficiency wages. Journal of Labor Economics, 17(2), 351–376.
White, H. (1980). A heteroscedasticity-consistent covariance matrix estimator and a direct test for heteroscedasticity. Econometrica, 48(4), 817–830.
Wood, A. (1994). North-South trade, employment and inequality: Changing fortunes in a skill-driven world. Oxford: Clarendon.
Yang, Y., & Mallick, S. (2010). Export premium, self-selection and learning-by-exporting: Evidence from Chinese matched firms. World Economy, 33(10), 1218–1240.
Zanchi, L. (1992). Inter-industry wage structure: Empirical evidence for Germany and a comparison with the U.S. and Sweden. (ECO Working Papers 76). European University Institute Research Forum.
Acknowledgments
A portion of the work for this paper was conducted while Ilan Tojerow was visiting the Center for Labor Economics at UC Berkeley. This paper is produced as part of the Wage Dynamics Network (WDN) coordinated by the European Central Bank (ECB). Financial support from the National Bank of Belgium (NBB) is gratefully acknowledged. This paper has benefited from presentations in 2011 at the Society of Labor Economists Conference (Vancouver) and in 2010 at the All-California Labor Economics Conference and the UC Berkeley Labor Lunch Seminar. We thank Orley Ashenfelter, Massimiliano Bratti, Raffaello Bronzini, David Card and Gustavo Gonzaga for their very helpful discussions and comments. We also would like to thank Statistics Belgium for providing access to the data. Opinions expressed in this article do not necessarily reflect the views of the institutes the authors are affiliated with.
Author information
Authors and Affiliations
Corresponding author
About this article
Cite this article
Du Caju, P., Rycx, F. & Tojerow, I. Wage structure effects of international trade in a small open economy: the case of Belgium. Rev World Econ 148, 297–331 (2012). https://doi.org/10.1007/s10290-012-0121-6
Published:
Issue Date:
DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/s10290-012-0121-6