International economic activities and skilled labour demand: evidence from Brazil and China

Pablo Fajnzylber and Ana Margarida Fernandes

Applied Economics, 2009, vol. 41, issue 5, pages 563-577

Abstract: Using two new firm-level datasets, this article investigates the impact of three international economic activities - the use of imported inputs, exports and foreign direct investment - on skilled labour demand in Brazil and China. We find that Brazilian firms that engage in these activities exhibit a higher skilled labour demand than firms that do not. In contrast, Chinese firms that engage in these activities have a lower skilled labour demand than firms that do not. Thus, international economic activities act as a channel for skill-biased technology diffusion in Brazil but have an effect of specialization according to comparative advantage in unskilled labour-intensive goods in China.

Date: 2009

Downloads: (external link)
http://www.informaworld.com/openurl?genre=article& ... 40C6AD35DC6213A474B5 (text/html)
Access to full text is restricted to subscribers.

Related works:
This item may be available elsewhere in EconPapers: Search for items with the same title.

Export reference: BibTeX RIS (EndNote, ProCite, RefMan) HTML/Text

Persistent link: http://EconPapers.repec.org/RePEc:taf:applec:v:41:y:2009:i:5:p:563-577

Ordering information: This journal article can be ordered from
http://www.tandf.co.uk/journals/subscription.html

Access Statistics for this article

Applied Economics is edited by Mark Taylor

More articles in Applied Economics from Taylor and Francis Journals
Series data maintained by Christopher F. Baum ().