Global Engagement and the Occupational Structure of Firms

Fredrik Heyman, Fredrik Sjöholm, Carl Davidson (), Steven Matusz and Susan Chun Zhu ()
Additional contact information
Susan Chun Zhu: Michigan State University

No 1026, Working Paper Series from Research Institute of Industrial Economics

Abstract: Global engagement can impact firm organization and the occupations firms need. We use a simple task-based model of the firm’s choice of occupational inputs to examine how that choice varies with global engagement. We reveal a robust and causal relationship between global engagement and the skill mix of occupations within firms, using Swedish matched employer-employee data that link firms and the labor force for 1997-2005. Taking an instrumental variable approach, we find that increased export shares (driven by higher world import demand) skew the labor mix more toward high-skill occupations. Our results suggest that global engagement may require firms to employ more skilled labor to undertake complex tasks embodied in international businesses, which have further implications for the demand for specific occupational skills and overall wage dispersion.

Keywords: Occupational structure; Globalization; Multinational Enterprises; Exporters (search for similar items in EconPapers)
JEL-codes: F10 F20 (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Pages: 40 pages
Date: 2014-05-27, Revised 2017-08-29
New Economics Papers: this item is included in nep-cse, nep-int, nep-lab and nep-sbm
References: View references in EconPapers View complete reference list from CitEc
Citations: View citations in EconPapers (14)

Downloads: (external link)
https://www.ifn.se/wfiles/wp/wp1026.pdf (application/pdf)

Related works:
Journal Article: Global engagement and the occupational structure of firms (2017)
Working Paper: Global Engagement and the Occupational Structure of Firms (2014)
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:hhs:iuiwop:1026

Access Statistics for this paper

More papers in Working Paper Series from Research Institute of Industrial Economics Research Institute of Industrial Economics, Box 55665, SE-102 15 Stockholm, Sweden. Contact information at EDIRC.
Bibliographic data for series maintained by Elisabeth Gustafsson ().