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Intermediate goods trade and international wage convergence in Central Europe

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Abstract

The recent literature on international outsourcing points out that cross-border fragmentation of production processes may foster the convergence of international factor prices. This paper makes a first attempt to analyze this hypothesis empirically using a small panel of NACE 2-digit wage data of three Central and Eastern European economies.

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Correspondence to Peter Egger.

Appendix

Appendix

Since data from the WIIW Industrial Database are used, the industry classification comprises aggregates of NACE-2-digit data. The following manufacturing industries are available: (DA) Food products, beverages and tobacco; (DB) Textiles and textile products; (DC) Leather and leather products; (DD) Wood and wood products; (DE) Pulp, paper and paper products; publishing and printing; (DF) Coke, refined petroleum products and nuclear fuel; (DG) Chemicals, chemical products and man-made fibres; (DH) Rubber and plastic products; (DI) Other non-metallic mineral products; (DJ) Basic metals and fabricated metal products; (DK) Machinery and equipment n.e.c.; (DL) Electrical and optical equipment; (DM) Transport equipment; (DN) Manufacturing n.e.c. The labels in front of each industry are the same as used in the WIIW database. “A”-“N” refer to the aggregates of NACE (Revision 1) 2-digit industries.

The database is collected and published by the Vienna Institute of Comparative Economic Research (WIIW). The annual data coverage is unbalanced due to political change in Central and Eastern Europe (the separation of Czechoslovakia into Czech Republic and Slovak Republic) but also due to data collection at the level of the covered countries’ statistical offices. The database covers wages, employment, gross production, exports and imports at the above indicated level of aggregation for all available countries. The database does not contain information on skill-specific wages. The corresponding data are collected from annual statistical yearbooks of the three covered economies.

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Egger, P. Intermediate goods trade and international wage convergence in Central Europe. Empirica 33, 181–192 (2006). https://doi.org/10.1007/s10663-006-9000-5

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