This paper studies the dynamics of three developing country labor markets employing recent advances in the estimation of continuous time Markov processes. We first examine the flows of workers among five states: three types of paid labor, unemployment, and out of the labor force. We find a high degree of commonality in patterns of worker flows among the three countries and attempt to compare th...

We juxtapose the effects of trade and technology on employment in U.S. local labor markets between 1990 and 2007. Labor markets whose initial industry composition exposes them to rising Chinese import competition experience significant falls in employment, particularly in manufacturing and among non-college workers. Labor markets susceptible to computerization due to specialization in routine t...

An incomplete markets life-cycle model with indivisible labor makes career lengths and human capital accumulation respond to labor tax rates and government supplied non-employment benefits. We compare aggregate and individual outcomes in this individualistic incomplete markets model with those in a comparable collectivist representative family with employment lotteries and complete insurance ma...

A number of theoretical studies have predicted that preferential trade agreements (PTAs) raise outside multinationals’ incentive to invest in the participating countries, especially in those that are integrated with larger markets and have lower production costs. The hypothesis has, however, not been tested empirically. This paper addresses the issue by estimating the impact of PTAs on countrie...