The Role of Globalization in the Within-Industry Shift Away from Unskilled Workers in France

Vanessa Strauss-Kahn

No 9716, NBER Working Papers from National Bureau of Economic Research, Inc

Abstract: Growth in international trade and globalization has been correlated in nearly all countries with a worsening of the less skilled labor situation relative to the skilled. In this empirical paper, I show that an important component of recent globalization in France has been a huge growth in vertical specialization -- the completion of the different production stages of a good in different countries. By shifting relative labor demand across countries, globalization of this form could explain the poor relative showing of unskilled labor in industrial countries. Using input-output tables and labor data, I find that in France vertical specialization -- defined as the share of imported inputs in production -- rose from 9% in 1977 to 14% in 1993. Further estimations show that vertical specialization contributed from 11% to 15% of the decline in the share of unskilled workers in French manufacturing employment for the 1977-1985 period and for 25% of the decline in the 1985-1993 period.

JEL-codes: F15 F16 (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Date: 2003-05
New Economics Papers: this item is included in nep-eec
Note: ITI LS
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Citations: View citations in EconPapers (72)

Published as Baldwin, Robert E. and L. Alan Winters (eds.) Challenges to globalization: Analyzing the economics NBER Economic Research Conference Report series. Chicago and London: University of Chicago Press, 2004.
Published as The Role of Globalization in the Within-Industry Shift Away from Unskilled Workers in France , Vanessa Strauss-Kahn. in Challenges to Globalization: Analyzing the Economics , Baldwin and Winters. 2004

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