Shift Working and Trade in Labor Services with Time Zone Differences

Toru Kikuchi and Ngo Long

No 3542, CESifo Working Paper Series from CESifo

Abstract: Using a two-factor (labor and capital), two-good (shift-working and non shiftworking commodities) model with two countries (Home and Foreign) which are located in different time zones, we highlight the impact of trade in labor services (via communication networks) on the comparative advantage of countries capable of such trade. It is shown that a comparative advantage in the shift-working commodity is held by pairs of countries in different time zones and connected through a good communication network. Concerning factor prices, if the shiftworking commodity is capital (resp. labor) intensive, the wage rate for day-shift labor will decrease (resp. increase) as a result of trade in labor services. It is also demonstrated that this kind of labor services utilization is mutual: some of Home’s day-shift labor will be utilized for Foreign night-shift, and vice versa. Thus, periodic trade in labor services occurs across countries.

Keywords: shiftworking; time zones; trade in labor services (search for similar items in EconPapers)
JEL-codes: F16 (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Date: 2011
References: View references in EconPapers View complete reference list from CitEc
Citations: View citations in EconPapers (8)

Downloads: (external link)
https://www.cesifo.org/DocDL/cesifo1_wp3542.pdf (application/pdf)

Related works:
Journal Article: SHIFT WORKING AND TRADE IN LABOUR SERVICES WITH TIME ZONE DIFFERENCES (2011)
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: https://EconPapers.repec.org/RePEc:ces:ceswps:_3542

Access Statistics for this paper

More papers in CESifo Working Paper Series from CESifo Contact information at EDIRC.
Bibliographic data for series maintained by Klaus Wohlrabe ().