Occupational Choice, Aggregate Productivity, and Trade

Jürgen Meckl () and Benjamin Weigert

No 5497, IZA Discussion Papers from Institute of Labor Economics (IZA)

Abstract: We propose occupational decisions of heterogeneous individuals as an alternative mechanism of explaining the distribution of firm productivities emphasized by empirical studies. Thus, we integrate the frameworks of Melitz (2003), and of Manasse and Turrini (2001) that establish the theoretical base of trade models with heterogeneous firms. Our model is technically much simpler than the Melitz approach while preserving the main results on firm-selection effects due to international market integration. Our approach paves the way for detailed analysis of institutions in a heterogeneous firm model to better understand the link between institutions and an economy’s productivity distribution.

Keywords: firm selection; heterogeneous productivities; intra-industry trade; occupational choice (search for similar items in EconPapers)
JEL-codes: F12 F16 J24 (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Pages: 15 pages
Date: 2011-02
New Economics Papers: this item is included in nep-bec and nep-int
References: View references in EconPapers View complete reference list from CitEc
Citations: View citations in EconPapers (5)

Published - published in: Review of Development Economics, 2013, 17 (3), 549-558

Downloads: (external link)
https://docs.iza.org/dp5497.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: https://EconPapers.repec.org/RePEc:iza:izadps:dp5497

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 of Labor Economics (IZA) IZA, P.O. Box 7240, D-53072 Bonn, Germany. Contact information at EDIRC.
Bibliographic data for series maintained by Holger Hinte ().