Trade Liberalization and the Demand for Skilled Labor in Brazil

Trade Liberalization and the Wage Skill Premium: Evidence from Indonesia

“…Similarly, Amiti and Davis (forthcoming) show that lower input tariffs and lower output tariffs increase wages in importing firms relative to domestic-oriented firms. Giovannetti and Menezes-Filho (2006) consider the separate effects of input tariffs and output tariffs on employment of different skill levels in Brazil. We extend this literature by focusing on the effects of reducing both input tariffs and final goods tariffs on the wage skill premium within firms.…”

The effects of trade liberalization on skill acquisition: a systematic review

“…This in turn increases the demand for skills and displaces the skill demand curve to the right, thereby decreasing the skill-premium when all other variables are held equal. For example, in Brazil, it has been argued that tariff reductions have increased imported technology and suggests that foreign inputs in manufacturing embody advanced technology and lead to a shift of the demand for skills outward (Giovannetti et al, 2006). Araújo et al (2011) refer to this process as the skill enhancing trade hypothesis and further justifies the need to control for technology to isolate the pure trade effect on skills.…”

“…Below, we address the impact that increasing trade has on the demand for skills by employers. The empirical evidence from developing countries such as Brazil (Araújo et al, 2011;Giovannetti et al, 2006) and Indonesia (Kasahara et al, 2016) suggests that increasing trade can have important technology spillovers. Further, interaction effects among trade and technology are crucial when it comes to upskilling because of new technologies, especially in the case of developing countries.…”

More Education, Better Jobs? A Critical Review of CCTs and Brazil's Bolsa Família Programme for Long-Term Poverty Reduction

“…With the expansion of public education and CCTs, educational attainment among the Brazilian labour force has steadily increased, with a growing proportion of the workforce now having completed secondary school (see, for example, Arabsheibani et al ., 2006; Menezes-Filho and Scorzafave, 2009; Zepeda et al ., 2009; Manacorda et al ., 2010; Küpfer et al ., 2012). As a result, the relative wages of semi-skilled/secondary-educated workers have fallen compared with both unskilled/primary and high-skilled/tertiary-educated workers (Giovannetti and Menezes-Filho, 2006; Manacorda et al ., 2010). Thus, the dramatic expansion of semi-skilled/secondary-educated workers has not been met with a parallel expansion in demand, leading to their diminishing wage/skills premium, and increasing levels of unemployment and informality (Menezes-Filho and Scorzafave, 2009).…”