Informal Jobs and Trade Liberalisation in Argentina

Rapid trade liberalisation can exert profound effects on labour markets. Domestic firms, to sustain competitiveness for survival, could react by cutting labour benefits to achieve cost reductions. Alternatively, trade liberalisation may alter the industry composition of firms, changing the aggregate...

Descripción completa

Detalles Bibliográficos
Autores: Acosta, Pablo Ariel, Montes Rojas, Gabriel Victorio
Tipo de recurso: artículo
Estado:Versión publicada
Fecha de publicación:2014
País:Argentina
Institución:Consejo Nacional de Investigaciones Científicas y Técnicas
Repositorio:CONICET Digital (CONICET)
Idioma:inglés
OAI Identifier:oai:ri.conicet.gov.ar:11336/36255
Acceso en línea:http://hdl.handle.net/11336/36255
Access Level:acceso abierto
Palabra clave:Trade Liberalization
Argentina
https://purl.org/becyt/ford/5.2
https://purl.org/becyt/ford/5
Descripción
Sumario:Rapid trade liberalisation can exert profound effects on labour markets. Domestic firms, to sustain competitiveness for survival, could react by cutting labour benefits to achieve cost reductions. Alternatively, trade liberalisation may alter the industry composition of firms, changing the aggregate formality rates. This paper studies the relationship between trade liberalisation and informality in Argentina. Using manufacturing industry-level data for 1992-2003, the results confirm the hypothesis that trade increases informality in industries that experience sudden foreign competition. This explains about a third of the increase in informality. Sectors with higher investment ratios are able to neutralise and reverse this effect.