Please use this identifier to cite or link to this item: http://hdl.handle.net/10419/34911
Year of Publication: 
2008
Series/Report no.: 
IZA Discussion Papers No. 3363
Publisher: 
Institute for the Study of Labor (IZA), Bonn
Abstract: 
We introduce search unemployment à la Pissarides into Melitz' (2003) model of trade with heterogeneous firms. We allow wages to be individually or collectively bargained and analytically solve for the equilibrium. We find that the selection effect of trade influences labor market outcomes. Trade liberalization lowers unemployment and raises real wages as long as it improves aggregate productivity net of transport costs. We show that this condition is likely to be met by a reduction in variable trade costs or the entry of new trading countries. On the other hand, the gains from a reduction in fixed market access costs are more elusive. Calibrating the model shows that the positive impact of trade openness on employment is significant when wages are bargained at the individual level but much smaller when wages are bargained at the collective level.
Subjects: 
Trade liberalization
unemployment
search model
firm heterogeneity
JEL: 
F12
Document Type: 
Working Paper

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