Trade and worker deskilling

Vieira Marques Da Costa, Rui ORCID: 0000-0002-7820-7373, Dhingra, Swati ORCID: 0000-0001-5468-3415 and Machin, Stephen ORCID: 0009-0004-8130-2701 (2019) Trade and worker deskilling. CEP Discussion Papers (CEPDP1622). London School of Economics and Political Science. Centre for Economic Performance, London, UK.

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Abstract

This paper presents new evidence on international trade and worker outcomes. It examines a big world event that produced an unprecedentedly large shock to the UK exchange rate. In the 24 hours in June 2016 during which the UK electorate unexpectedly voted to leave the European Union, the value of sterling plummeted. It recorded the biggest depreciation that has occurred in any of the world’s four major currencies since the collapse of Bretton Woods. Exploiting this variation, the paper studies the impact of trade on wages and worker training. Wages and training fell for workers employed in sectors where the intermediate import price rose by more as a consequence of the sterling depreciation. Calibrating the estimated wage elasticity with respect to intermediate import prices to theory uncovers evidence of a production complementarity between workers and intermediate imports. This provides new direct evidence that, in the modern world of global value chains, it is changes in the cost of intermediate imports that act as a driver of the impact of globalization on worker welfare. The episode studied and the findings add to widely expressed, growing concerns about poor productivity performance relating to skills and to patterns of real wage stagnation that are plaguing contemporary labour markets.

Item Type:	Monograph (Discussion Paper)
Official URL:	https://cep.lse.ac.uk/_new/publications/discussion...
Additional Information:	© 2019 The Authors
Divisions:	Centre for Economic Performance Economics
Subjects:	H Social Sciences > HC Economic History and Conditions
JEL classification:	F - International Economics > F1 - Trade > F14 - Country and Industry Studies of Trade F - International Economics > F3 - International Finance > F31 - Foreign Exchange J - Labor and Demographic Economics > J2 - Time Allocation, Work Behavior, and Employment Determination and Creation; Human Capital; Retirement > J24 - Human Capital; Skills; Occupational Choice; Labor Productivity J - Labor and Demographic Economics > J3 - Wages, Compensation, and Labor Costs > J31 - Wage Level and Structure; Wage Differentials by Skill, Training, Occupation, etc.
Date Deposited:	02 Dec 2019 13:21
Last Modified:	11 Dec 2024 19:32
URI:	http://eprints.lse.ac.uk/id/eprint/102726

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