Scandinavian Working Papers in Economics
Working Papers,
Copenhagen Business School, Department of Economics
No 20-2007: The Implications of Globalization for Firms? Demand for Skilled and Unskilled Labor
Michael Rosholm, Christian Scheuer and Anders Sørensen
Additional contact information
Michael Rosholm: Department of Economics, Copenhagen Business School, Postal: Department of Economics, Copenhagen Business School, Solbjerg Plads 3 C, 5. sal, DK-2000 Frederiksberg, Denmark
Christian Scheuer: Department of Economics, Copenhagen Business School, Postal: Department of Economics, Copenhagen Business School, Solbjerg Plads 3 C, 5. sal, DK-2000 Frederiksberg, Denmark
Anders Sørensen: Department of Economics, Copenhagen Business School, Postal: Department of Economics, Copenhagen Business School, Solbjerg Plads 3 C, 5. sal, DK-2000 Frederiksberg, Denmark
Abstract: This paper investigates the impact of globalization, in the sense of increasing international trade, on the demand for skills in Danish manufacturing companies. The study is based on a unique data set that enables us to develop rich measures of international outsourcing and import penetration. Moreover, the data also allows several strategies to strengthen the causal interpretation of our results. The main finding of the analysis is that it is of crucial importance to distinguish imports - both in the form of outsourcing and overall imports - by country-of-origin. We find that international trade with low-wage countries leads to skill-upgrading. This is especially pronounced for import penetration with a ceteris paribus contribution of around fifty percent to skill-upgrading. Moreover, we find that import penetration in goods originating from high-wage countries lead to skill-downgrading. This latter result suggests that Danish manufacturing has comparative advantage in skill intensive production when compared to low-wage countries, but in unskill-intensive production when compared to high-wage countries. Skill-upgrading, Low-wage country outsourcing, Low-wage country import penetration, Comparative advantage
Keywords: na
JEL-codes: G10
23 pages, January 1, 2007
Full text files
7709
- Copenhagen Business School, Department of Economics
- Ordering Working Papers
- Home page for this series
Questions (including download problems) about the papers in this series should be directed to CBS Library Research Registration Team ()
Report other problems with accessing this service to Sune Karlsson ().
RePEc:hhs:cbsnow:2007_020This page generated on 2024-09-13 22:14:19.