This dissertation assesses the causes and consequences of gender wage discrimination in Ethiopia. In the first chapter, we estimate the distribution of Gender Wage Discrimination in the Ethiopian urban labor market using quantile counterfactual decompositions. The literature generally finds a u-shaped distribution suggesting the presence of both a sticky floor effect and a glass ceiling effect. Using repeated cross-section data for the years 2006, 2010 and 2014, we find a strong evidence of a sticky floor effect but not a glass ceiling effect in the Ethiopian urban labor market. Our paper also provides evidence that there is substantial difference in the extent of discrimination between working in private and public jobs. Public jobs are less discriminatory for women relative to the private jobs. In the second chapter, we investigate the determinants of the gender wage gap in the Ethiopian manufacturing sector between the years 1996 and 2010 with a particular focus on the impact of the export orientation. This is done both at the intensive and extensive margin. Accordingly, we find that more export orientation helps reduce the firm level gender wage gap regardless of whether it is at the intensive or extensive margin. Our results also provide evidence on the presence of sectoral variation on the association between export orientation and gender wage gap. Export orientation doesn’t have a significant impact on the gender wage gap in the construction and housing goods sector. Segmenting the data in to two we also find that the impact of export orientation in reducing gender wage gap is much stronger for the period 2003-2010 relative to the 1996-2002 period. Finally, we estimate the impact of gender earnings differentials on the technical efficiency of the firm in the Ethiopian manufacturing sector for the period 1996 through 2010. We adopt a two-step time-variant panel stochastic frontier model using a translog production function. Our results provide fresh evidence on the existence of a significant negative association between gender wage gap and predicted technical efficiencies of firms. Further subdividing the manufacturing sector into four different industries, we find that the negative association is consistent in most industries. Our results are also robust to the inclusion of other firm level explanatory variables at the sectoral level.

This paper studied the extensive margin (EM) and intensive margin (IM)of liquefied natural gas(LNG) imports in Europe over the period 1996-2015. Two econometric models were used, a prob it estimation for the EM and an OLS for the IM. A time-varying approach was conducted to analyse the stability of the models in the studied time frame. The models were constructed through the application of known determinants of LNG trade as well as new factors that previously was unused in the investigation of LNG trade. The results indicated an overall stable EM, but a highly varying IM over the period. The findings inform that the EM is driven by income, diversification and lower bounds technological development and we found that itis inhibited by pipeline imports, domestic production and higher bounds technological development. The IM is determined by favourable pricing opportunities, lower bounds technological development and the diversification aspect of LNG. IM is negatively affected by domestic natural gas production and the higher bounds of technological development.

This dissertation consists of three essays that examine the impact of various trade policies on the extensive (new trading relationships) and intensive (increase in trade of existing relationships) margins of trade, whereas past studies have been limited to aggregate trade flows. An inquiry into the extensive and intensive margins of trade reveals that total aggregate trade masks the heterogeneous trade creating effect of policy variables. Furthermore, this dissertation also takes into account the econometric issues that have plagued the traditional empirical model that analyzes the impact of these policies on trade. The first chapter examines the impact of hosting and bidding for mega-events on exports. Rose & Spiegel (2011b) find that hosts and unsuccessful bidders (candidates) experience a similar positive impact on total aggregate exports. They attribute the Olympic effect to the signal a country sends when bidding to host the games. This chapter inquires whether this Olympic signal leads to new trading relationships or an increase in trade in existing relationships. The results indicate that only hosts (not candidates) experience a permanent increase in exports at the intensive margin. While hosting the Olympics is consistently correlated with a permanent deepening of existing trade relationships, it is at the expense of the number of trading relationships. The second chapter examines the impact of the World Trade Organization (WTO) membership on the extensive and intensive margin of imports. Accounting for several estimation issues that have plagued the literature, results indicate that the benefit of the WTO is realized entirely through the extensive margin. The results are in line with the literature that attributes WTO to reducing market uncertainty through tariff binds rather than reduction, thus increasing entry in the export market even when the applied protection is unchanged. The third chapter examines the impact of fiscal episodes (fiscal stimuli and consolidation) on the extensive and intensive margins of exports. The results indicate that fiscal consolidation leads to an increase in total exports, while a fiscal stimulus leads to a decrease in total exports. Furthermore, fiscal consolidation leads to an increase in exports solely through the extensive margin.

This dissertation consists of three essays in International Trade. The first essay studies the impact of changing tariffs on the range of goods countries export to the United States. The empirical analysis shows that tariffs tend to have a statistically significant but small impact: at best 5 percent of the increasing extensive margin for 1989-1999 and 12 percent for 1996-2006 is explained by tariff reductions. This suggests the extensive margin has not amplified the impact of tariffs on trade flows to such an extent that the relatively moderate tariff reductions since WW II can explain the strong growth of world trade. The second essay investigates the sector and country determinants of the range of goods that countries export to the United States. Besides relating the traditional determinants of comparative advantage, sectors’ factor intensities interacted with countries’ factor abundance to the extensive margin in a sector, the empirical investigation includes interactions between sector-level measures of intermediate intensity and trade frictions. Consistent with hypotheses about fragmentation, the results show that closer countries and countries with lower tariffs imposed on them export a wider range of goods in sectors that have large intermediate cost shares. The impact of trade frictions is, however, far less pronounced for the more skilled-labor intensive sectors that are characterized by use of a greater range of intermediates. The third essay studies the impact of trade liberalizations on U.S. bilateral trade from 1989-2001 with a focus on the influence of exporting country liberalizations which matter when exports are produced with imported intermediates. Guided by extensions of the Eaton and Kortum (2002) model which allows for production to involve the use of imported intermediates, the essay estimates a structural equation that links U.S. bilateral trade flows to both intermediate tariffs imposed by countries exporting to the United States and U.S. tariffs. The empirical estimates suggest that especially for less developed countries their own liberalizations have been quantitatively much more important in explaining bilateral trade growth with an effect 3 times larger than the impact of U.S. liberalizations. / text

Many studies consider the potential for preferential trade agreements (PTAs) to have differing effects on trade. Kohl (2014) and Baier et al. (2019) show that some PTA’s promote trade while the majority of PTAs have no significant effect. Some even lower trade. Why do these differing cases arise? One possibility is that the effects of trade agreements depend on specific provisions – provisions that differ across agreements. Another possibility is the potential for PTAs to impact trade differently depending on the presence of certain bilateral characteristics between trading nations such as physical distance or metaphorical types of distance such as culture or language. In my dissertation, “Heterogeneous Effects of Trade Agreements on Trade,” we explore these two avenues separately.In the first chapter we consider if differences in the prevalence of corruption between members of a PTA make trade agreements more or less effective at boosting trade. Such differences could create more uncertainty that limits the potential for trade even if a trade agreement lowers barriers, implying that such agreements will not boost trade. On the other hand, trade agreements could be most effective in such disparate countries. Not only might trade agreements remove barriers used by corrupt officials to extort firms, but a trade agreement could reduce the uncertainty of operating in a different business environment by establishing rules and regulations. Results in this paper are allowed to differ across several dimensions, including extensive versus intensive margin, whether the exporter or importer is more corrupt, and between South-South and South-North trade. Using a gravity model of trade spanning a panel of countries from 1996 to 2017, we find that PTAs increase trade more along the intensive margin when importing countries are more corrupt but boost trade more along the extensive margin when exporting countries are more corrupt. Results are stronger for trade between South-South (S-S) countries than between North-South (N-S) countries. Chapter two examines how specific provisions within trade agreements – particularly, provisions regarding environmental standards – affect trade between members and non-members. While there is a rising trend to incorporate different types of environmental provisions in preferential trade agreements (PTAs), few studies took explicit steps to assess the trade consequences of environmental provisions in PTAs. This paper employs a gravity model over the period from 1984 to 2016 and uses a new detailed dataset on a broad range of environmental provisions in PTAs to fill the gap in the literature by looking at possible trade diversion effects from trade agreements with deep environmental clauses. We follow Mattoo et al. (2017) and construct an index that captures importers’ average depth of trade agreements with the rest of the world where depth is taken as the extent that environmental provisions are covered. The inclusion of this depth variable allows us to see if any trade diversion effect arises from trade agreements with deep environmental provisions. We specifically focus on exporters with low environmental standards, as those are the countries that are likely to “host” trade in environmentally unsustainable goods. We also differentiate between different types of environmental policies and concentrate on trade in “dirty” products. Our results suggest that environmental provisions in PTAs are an effective tool of promoting environmentally sustainable trade in the world, as these types of policies tend to reduce “dirty” trade even with non-member nations. Finally, the third chapter considers the heterogeneous design of PTA’s more broadly, looking at the trade effects of different policy areas within trade agreements, while differentiating their impact on trade in new product varieties of goods versus trade in existing products. We specifically focus on 18 “core” provisions that Hofmann et al. (2019) mark as most economically relevant policies. We further distinguish three types of policies within the “core” group of provisions, namely: i) provisions that directly liberalize trade through either reduction in tariffs or simplification of standards, ii) policies that enable signatory nations to compete on equal grounds, and iii) provisions that specify the rules of investment. Previous studies that consider the effects of trade agreements on the margins of trade have either focused on the effects of different types of PTAs, rather than specific policies, or used limited data and outdated methodologies. We are contributing to the literature by assessing the impact of different groups of policies on the margins of international trade using a highly disaggregated dataset covering a large number of countries and years. We also employ Factor Analysis to check robustness of our findings using regular count indices. Our results indicate that provisions that tend to reduce barriers to trade through either simplification of standards or reduction in monetary charges tend to increase trade in existing varieties of goods, while the effect of investment provisions is either insignificant or might actually lower trade.

Estudio de caso para optar al grado de Magíster en Estrategia Internacional y Política Comercial / Chile es el primer productor de cobre a nivel mundial en la actualidad, siendo esta industria de suma importancia para sus exportaciones, la inversión extranjera directa entrante y por ende para la economía del país. Sin embargo, este sector se ha visto afectado por externalidades negativas, por ejemplo, las fuertes fluctuaciones de los precios de los commodities. Estos retos afectan el desarrollo futuro del sector y constituyen una oportunidad para la innovación de la industria. En este contexto, el desarrollo de los proveedores de servicios en minería es clave para fortalecer su capacidad tecnológica, y generar soluciones intensivas en conocimientos. Estos proveedores de servicios son clave para la diversificación de la canasta exportadora del país. El objetivo de este trabajo es revisar en qué medida las exportaciones de los proveedores de servicios han sido impulsados por empresas de capital chileno o por sucursales de empresas multinacionales establecidas en Chile, considerando el periodo comprendido entre los años 2010 y 2014. En particular, la pregunta de investigación es, ¿en qué medida los cambios en las exportaciones de los proveedores de servicios se deben a las variaciones en las exportaciones de las mismas empresas de los mismos servicios a los mismos países (el llamado margen intensivo) o se debe a las variaciones de nuevas empresas de nuevos servicios a nuevos mercados (el llamado margen extensivo)? En la medida que las empresas de capital chileno juegan un papel importante en el margen extensivo, se podría concluir que contribuyen a la diversificación exportadora del país. Los resultados indican que las empresas chilenas juegan un rol significativo en la diversificación de las exportaciones de servicios en la minería, dado a que estas representaron el 40% en promedio del margen extensivo de entrada en el periodo estudiado. Sin embargo, las empresas extranjeras son aquellas que representaron el 78% del valor total exportado en el periodo. Es por esto que, las políticas o programas enfocados en el sector deben ayudar a generar estabilidad para las empresas chilenas, con la finalidad de mantener su supervivencia en el mercado internacional Además, se debe considerar que se encuentran consolidadas a nivel regional, pero en un proceso de transición donde una mayor asociatividad entre los sectores público - privado puede incentivar su proceso de captación de nuevas tecnologías, y por ende su innovación, logrando así una mayor diversificación a nivel mundial y su inserción en las cadenas globales de valor. / Chile is the leading producer of copper worldwide, being this industry of immense importance to its exports, to foreign direct investment and therefore to the country economy. However, this sector has been affected by negative externalities, for example, the low prices of commodities. Therefore, these elements affect the future development of the sector and, also constitute an opportunity for industry innovation. In this context, the development of mining services suppliers is the key to strengthen their technological capacity and generate knowledge-intensive solutions. Theses suppliers are very important to diversify Chilean exports. The objective of this paper is to know to which extent services suppliers’ exports have been boosted by Chilean companies or by multinationals located in Chile, considering the period between 2010 and 2014. In particular, the investigation question is: to which extent changes in services suppliers’ exports are caused by exports variations of the same companies of the same services to the same countries (intensive margin) or by exports variations of new companies of new services to new countries (extensive margin)? As Chilean companies play a key role in the extensive margin, it can be concluded that they contribute to exports diversification. The results indicate that Chilean companies play a significant role in the diversification of mining services export, since they represent an average of 40% of the extensive margin of entry in the period studied. However, foreign companies are those that represented 78% of the total value exported in the period. Therefore, the policies or programs focused on the sector should help to generate stability for Chilean companies, aiming to maintain their survival in the international market. Besides, it must be considered that they are consolidated at the regional level, but in a transition process where a greater association between the public and private sectors can stimulate its process of attracting recent technologies and therefore its innovation, thus achieving a greater diversification at a global level and its insertion in global value chains.

This thesis is, to my knowledge, the first study utilising data from the Swedish population and housing censuses between 1960 and 1990 merged with other data from the same period in order to estimate extensive margin labour supply responses to changes in municipal tax rate changes. Given that women historically have not faced the same structural labour market preconditions as men, the empirical strategy is designed to allow for an analysis of gender-based heterogeneity in labour supply responses. Using a weighted fixed effects framework, estimates of the average over time between municipal effects of tax rate increases are presented. Using the preferred main model specification, the estimate for the average tax rate elasticity is -0.165 for men and 0.3513 for women. Additionally, an attempt is made to estimate an effect using a difference-in-difference framework, treating the overall largest municipal tax rate changes as a form of quasi-experimental treatment. The results of the main analysis indicate the presence of gender-based heterogeneity in extensive margin labour supply responses during 1960 to 1990 within the administrative region in question.

This thesis deals with the integration of firms into export markets when trade barriers decrease. It consists in three chapters.The first chapter focuses on how cross-industry differences in factor intensities and within-industry differences in firm productivity shape the response of the extensive (the decision to export) and the intensive (the exported volumes) margin of export. The context of the analysis is the entry of Turkey into the European Customs Union in 1996. Results suggest that the extensive margin reacted more in labor-intensive sectors.In the second chapter we use a gravity approach to analyze how the decrease in tariffs promoted during the '90s by the Uruguay Round multilateral agreement affected trade margins for French firms. We find that the tariffs significantly affect trade only through the extensive margin. The third chapter describes the dynamic of firms' export to different countries and uncovers eleven new stylized facts on firm-level trade. / Esta tesis trata de la integración de las impresas en los mercados internacionales cuando las barreras al comercio bajan. El primer capitulo analiza como las diferencias de la intensidad de los factores entre las industrias y de la productividad de las impresas en cada industria determinan la respuesta del margen extenso (la decisión de exportar) y intensivo (los volúmenes exportados) de cada impresa. El contexto de este análisis es la entrada de la Turquía en la Unión Aduanera Europea en el 1996. Los resultados indican que el margen extenso reacciona más en los sectores más intensivos en mano de obra.En el segundo capitulo utilizamos una ecuación gravitacional para analizar como el decrecimiento de las tarifas obtenida en los '90s gracias al "Uruguay Round" ha afectado los márgenes del comercio de las impresas Francesas. Descubrimos que las tarifas afectan de una manera significativa solo el margen extenso.El tercero capitulo describe la dinámica del exporte de las impresas en distintos Piases y revela once nuevos hechos estilizados sobre el comercio de las empresas.

Social benefits were forecasted to increase by 13 percent to 2022 before the pandemic hit the economy (Prop. 2018/19:1). In the latest forecast it has almost doubled: an increase of 24 percent to 2022 (Prop. 2020/21:1). Youths and immigrants are particularly affected by the downturn, especially since labor market sectors were both groups often have their first job are in the center of attention for government restrictions to lower the spread of Covid-19. These two groups are overrepresented among social benefit recipients when being unemployed (Socialstyrelsen, 2020), since they have not qualified to national unemployment insurances (Rosengren, 2017). The municipal social assistance was intended to be the outermost safety net. Though the transfer should be short-term, over 40 percent of the households receiving social benefits do it for more than ten months, and the share increases[1]. Social benefit could now be considered a complement to national transfers and an extra unemployment benefit for those who are not eligible for the national social safety system on the labor market. Municipalities are allowed to demand participation in different activities – henceforth called activation – as a prerequisite for social benefit eligibility. Under the assumption of full-time activation for social benefit recipients, the difference in leisure between employment or unemployment with activation is zero (0). This affect the cost of labor for the individual, which is usually partly described as the relative value of leisure (non-monetary costs). If it does not cost any leisure to leave unemployment for employment, the disutility of work decrease. Social benefits also reimburse monetary labor costs, such as commuting, wherefore there is no difference in fixed labor costs either. Differences in disposable income is then the only remaining variable to decide the individuals labor supply, according to conventional labor market theory; if the disposable income when working exceed the disposable income when not working, the individual should work. A social benefit recipient is eligible for the job stimulus after six months of social benefit dependency, giving a 25 percent earnings disregard on the net labor income. This is an exception from the usual one-to-one discount (or 100 percent marginal effect) on the transfer when receiving other incomes, such as national transfers or wage. The stimulus is intended to increase the incentives for working and motivate those who are long-term recipients to be active on the labor market[2]. During this time period, all recipients have a larger disposable income if working compared to not working – combined with the other assumptions above, this means all recipients should work when being eligible for job stimulus. Available data (Socialstyrelsen, 2016) shows only 1.8 percent of all recipients actually had labor incomes and got the earnings disregard, inferring a deviation from the expectations of common labor market theory. Meaning there could be an unknown variable in the utility function, decreasing the utility from working more than the utility increase from the job stimulus. There are a variety of possible explanations, such as asymmetric information, stigmatization, matching problems et cetera. In this thesis, the focus will be effort. This is the explanation closest to the standard model, where the disutility of lost leisure due to labor is the centerpiece. In my previous thesis (Rosengren, 2019), I introduced a draft of an effort model. In this model, working came with a larger effort than activation giving rise to a disutility. The income differential needs to exceed the cost of the extra effort if the individual should choose to work. Expanding the standard model could provide a more sufficient tool for analyzing labor market participation and employment effects in the social benefit system. This thesis provides a model for analyzing the individual’s decision on the extensive margin – to work or not to work – in transfer systems, with regard to effort, shirking and effective leisure. I simulate the effort level corresponding to the share of social benefit recipients observed to have labor income during the job stimulus spell. Finding the effort in activation being approximately 71.5 percent of the effort when employed. I also forecast the effect of the planned increase in the job stimulus from 25 to 50 percent by the same simulation; 1 percent of the social benefit recipients are expected to leave activation for employment due to the doubled job stimulus. I optimize effort (from the policy-maker’s perspective) at different skill levels to find the effort level were all will supply labor. If enforcing 99.65 percent effort 83.44 percent are expected to leave activation for work. / Allt fler arbetslösa försörjer sig på ekonomiskt bistånd istället för de statliga arbetslöshetsersättningarna. Ekonomiskt bistånd eller försörjningsstöd är inte utformat med drivkrafter för arbete i beaktande. Exempelvis får den som tar emot bidraget inget utbyte av att börja arbeta förrän arbetsinkomsten överstiger försörjningsstödsnormen. För ett hushåll med två vuxna och fyra barn innebär det ca 30 000 SEK efter skatt. Finns det dessutom inga aktivitetskrav förlorar hushållet samtidigt fritid av att börja arbeta. Jobbstimulansen infördes för att få drivkrafter för arbete i försörjningsstödet. Det innebär att den som haft ekonomiskt bistånd i sex månader och börjar arbeta får behålla 25 procent av nettoinkomsten, istället för att bidraget minskar krona för krona när löneinkomsten ökar. Under antagandet om heltidsaktivering för försörjningsstödsmottagare är den tillgängliga fritiden lika för den som arbetar och för den som är arbetslös, därmed är den rörliga kostnaden av att arbeta lika. Eftersom försörjningsstödet kompenserar för eventuella kostnader som uppstår för den som börjar jobba, såsom förskoleavgift eller pendlingskostnader, påverkas inte disponibelinkomsten av fasta kostnader för att arbeta heller. Försörjningsstödsmottagare med jobbstimulans och heltidsaktivering kan således tjäna mer pengar och därmed öka sin nytta, utan att öka sin onytta (eftersom fritiden är oförändrad), genom att börja arbeta. Utifrån arbetsutbudsteori skulle förväntan vara att alla skulle börja arbeta under sådana förutsättningar. Trots det visar en uppföljning att bara 1,8 procent arbetar. Det kan finnas olika förklaringar till att så få börjar arbeta; bristande information om jobbstimulansen, sök- och matchningsproblem och så vidare. I den här uppsatsen prövas skillnader i ansträngning genom att anpassa en modell för arbetsutbud till det svenska socialbidragssystemet, och ge bidragstagare möjlighet att lata sig eller skolka i aktiveringen – inspirerat av den etablerade shirking theory – för att utöka sin effektiva fritid. Studier visar att människor upplever skolk eller lathet som substitut till ledighet. Även om den faktiska fritiden är densamma för den som arbetar och den som är arbetslös men deltar i aktivering, kan skillnader i ansträngning därmed innebära att den effektiva fritiden skiljer sig. När den som kan få jobbstimulans ska börja arbeta innebär det då en minskad effektiv fritid, och därmed en onytta eller upplevd kostnad av arbete. Försörjningsstödsmottagaren väljer sin ansträngning, som ger upphov till olika mycket onytta beroende på individens färdigheter där den med mer färdigheter har en lägre onytta av arbete eller ansträngning. Om personen arbetar eller inte beror på om den ökade nyttan av att börja arbeta med jobbstimulans överträffar onyttan av den minskade effektiva fritiden av att börja arbeta, givet individens färdigheter. I uppsatsen undersöks effekten av förändringar i olika variabler – ansträngning, färdighet och jobbstimulans – och jag finner att jobbstimulansen bara påverkar nyttan på marginalen, i jämförelse med stora effekter av ökad ansträngning eller ökade färdigheter. Vidare simuleras vilken ansträngningsnivå som korresponderar med att 1,8 procent arbetar och därmed har större nytta av jobbstimulansen än av den extra effektiva fritiden. Det visar sig att ansträngningen i aktiveringen verkar vara 71,5 procent jämfört ansträngningen på ett jobb. Om jobbstimulansen fördubblas, till en offentligfinansiell kostnad av 100 miljoner SEK, ökar andelen som börjar jobba bara med drygt en procentenhet vid bibehållen ansträngningsnivå. I uppsatsen beräknar jag även optimal ansträngningsnivå för att alla vid en viss färdighetsnivå ska börja arbeta. Det visar sig att om ansträngningsnivån höjs med knappt 20 procentenheter till 90 procent, skulle andelen som börjar arbeta stiga från 1,8 procent till 51 procent. Utöver dessa nya tillskott – förklaringsmodeller och resultat – till fältet, innehåller uppsatsen dessutom förslag på empiriska tester av andra förklaringar. För att genomföra simuleringar och kalkyleringar, har en modell över det svenska bidrags- och skattesystemet byggts i Matlab. Även den är att betrakta som ett tillskott.