SKILL-BIASED EXPORT GROWTH: ACCOUNTING FOR THE CHANGES IN LABOR CONTENTS ACROSS ETHNIC GROUPS IN MALAYSIA (1991–2000)

M. Yusof Saari () and Jiansuo Pei
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M. Yusof Saari: Faculty of Economics and Management, Universiti Putra Malaysia, 43400 Serdang, Selangor, Malaysia
Jiansuo Pei: School of International Trade and Economics, University of International Business and Economics, Beijing 100029, China
Authors registered in the RePEc Author Service: 裴建锁

The Singapore Economic Review (SER), 2013, vol. 58, issue 02, 1-25

Abstract: This paper quantifies the extent to which trade liberalization in Malaysia between 1991 and 2000 has contributed to the expansion in the most skilled labor, which in turn can validate the trade-enhanced quality upgrading hypothesis. By using an input–output structural decomposition analysis (SDA), results confirm the theoretical predication that skills help to upgrade the quality of exporting commodities, by documenting that trade growth is associated with increases in the use of the higher skilled labor. We observe that Chinese and Indian ethnic groups contribute the most to the quality upgrading of exporting commodities, more so than the Malays, which imply productivity differentials among the ethnic groups.

Keywords: Labor content; skills; structural decomposition analysis (SDA); ethnic groups; C67; F16; C51 (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Date: 2013
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DOI: 10.1142/S0217590813500100

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