Seminario

TBTs, Firm Organization and Labour Structure

11 novembre 2021
Orario di inizio 
14:00
Palazzo di Economia - Via Inama 5, Trento
Seminar room, first floor
Organizzato da: 
Doctoral School of Social Sciences
Destinatari: 
Tutti/e
Partecipazione: 
Ingresso libero
Contatti: 
school.socialsciences@unitn.it
Speaker: 
Anna Cecilia Rosso, DIpartimento di Economia, Università dell'Insubria

Abstract

This paper investigates the effects of foreign shocks induced by the introduction of Technical Barriers to Trade (TBTs) in importing countries on exporting firms’ occupational structure. We rely on the Specific Trade Concern (STC) data released by the WTO to identify trade-restrictive TBT measures, combined with matched employer-employee data for the population of French exporters over the period 1995-2010, and with information on the list of product-destinations served by each French exporter. Controlling for time-invariant firm/occupation effects and for time-varying sector/occupation shocks, IV estimates show that exporting firms respond to the increased complexity associated with restrictive TBTs at destination by raising the share of managers at the expense of blue collars, white collars and other professionals. This evidence is consistent with the growing literature exploring how firms organize their workforce composition in presence of exogenous (foreign) shocks; and it is also related to the well-beaten literature on the labour market effects of trade.

The paper is co-authored with Barba Navaretti, Fontagné, Orefice, Pica