Openness and Technological Innovation in East Asia: Have They Increased the Demand for Skills?

Rita K. Almeida ()
Additional contact information
Rita K. Almeida: World Bank

No 4474, IZA Discussion Papers from Institute for the Study of Labor (IZA)

Abstract: This paper asks whether the increased openness and technological innovation in East Asia have contributed to an increased demand for skills in the region. We explore a unique firm level data set across eight countries. Our results strongly support the idea that greater openness and technology adoption have increased the demand for skills, especially in middle income countries. Moreover, while the presence in international markets has been skill enhancing for most middle income countries, this has not been the case for manufacturing firms operating in China and in low-income countries. If international integration in the region intensifies further and technology continues to be skilled biased, policies aimed at mitigating skills shortages in the region should produce continual and persistent increases in skills.

Keywords: demand for skills; foreign direct investment; exports; firm level data (search for similar items in EconPapers)
JEL-codes: J23 J24 J31 O33 (search for similar items in EconPapers)
New Economics Papers: this item is included in nep-cse, nep-int and nep-sea
Date: 2009-10

Downloads: (external link)
http://ftp.iza.org/dp4474.pdf (application/pdf)

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:iza:izadps:dp4474

Ordering information: This working paper can be ordered from
IZA, Margard Ody, P.O. Box 7240, D-53072 Bonn, Germany

Access Statistics for this paper

More papers in IZA Discussion Papers from Institute for the Study of Labor (IZA)
Address: IZA, P.O. Box 7240, D-53072 Bonn, Germany
Contact information at EDIRC.
Series data maintained by Mark Fallak ().