On Wednesday 7th of March, Professor Pedro Martins (SBM) will be presenting his research.

Abstract

The increased range and quality of China’s exports is a major ongoing development in the international economy with potentially far-reaching effects, including in labour markets. On top of the direct effects of increased imports from China studied in previous research, in this paper we also examine the indirect labour market effects stemming from increased export competition in third markets. Our evidence, based on matched employer-employee panel data from Portugal covering 1991-2008 period, indicates that workers’ earnings and employment are significantly negatively affected by China’s imports, but essentially only through the indirect, ‘market-stealing’ channel. The results are robust to a number of checks, including an alternative measure of the indirect effects, and are found to be stronger for women, older and less educated workers, and workers in domestic firms.

Cabral, S., Martins, P., dos Santos, J. and Tavares, M. (Feb, 2018)