Exporting, Wage Profiles, and Human Capital: Evidence from Brazil

Xiao Ma, Marc-Andreas Muendler and Alejandro Nakab

University of California at San Diego, Economics Working Paper Series from Department of Economics, UC San Diego

Abstract: Abstract: Export activity shapes workers’ experience-wage profiles. Using employer-employee and customs data for Brazilian manufacturing, we document that workers’ experience-wage profiles are steeper at exporters than at non-exporters and, among exporters, steeper at exporters shipping to high-income destinations. We develop and quantify a model featuring worker-firm wage bargaining, export-market entry by multi-worker firms, and human capital accumulation by workers to interpret the data. Human capital growth can explain one-half of the differences in wage profiles between exporters and non-exporters. We show that increased human capital per worker can account for one-half of the overall gains in real income from trade openness.

Keywords: 38 Economics (for-2020); 3801 Applied Economics (for-2020); 3802 Econometrics (for-2020); 1402 Applied Economics (for); 1403 Econometrics (for); Economics (science-metrix); 3502 Banking; finance and investment (for-2020); 3801 Applied economics (for-2020); 3802 Econometrics (for-2020) (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Date: 2025-09-11
New Economics Papers: this item is included in nep-iaf
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