Exports and labor costs: Evidence from a French Policy - Sciences Po Accéder directement au contenu
Article Dans Une Revue Review of World Economics Année : 2018

Exports and labor costs: Evidence from a French Policy

Résumé

We investigate the role that labor costs hold in exporters’ performance. To do so, we exploit a large-scale French reform that granted most firms a tax credit proportional to the wagebill of their employees paid below a given threshold. This policy effectively translated into a cut in labor cost whose magnitude varies depending on firm-specific wage structures. We use the predicted treatment intensity based on pre-reform composition of the labor force as an instrument for the actual policy-induced firm-level change in labor costs. Although our point estimates are consistent with commonly estimated firm-level trade elasticities combined with reasonable labor shares in total costs, coefficients are found to be very noisy, suggesting lack of robust evidence of a causal effect of the policy. We discuss several potential explanations for our results as well as their implications.
Fichier principal
Vignette du fichier
2018-malgouyres-and-mayer-exports-and-labor-costs-evidence-from-a-french-policy.pdf (1.02 Mo) Télécharger le fichier
Origine : Fichiers produits par l'(les) auteur(s)

Dates et versions

hal-03391928 , version 1 (21-10-2021)

Identifiants

Citer

Clément Malgouyres, Thierry Mayer. Exports and labor costs: Evidence from a French Policy. Review of World Economics, 2018, 154 (3), pp.429 - 454. ⟨10.1007/s10290-018-0320-x⟩. ⟨hal-03391928⟩
91 Consultations
220 Téléchargements

Altmetric

Partager

Gmail Facebook X LinkedIn More