Employment and wage adjustment Insider and outsider control in a Polish privatization panel study

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EMU, EU, Market Integration and Consumption Smoothing

We take a new approach to the study of the impact of EMU on consumption smoothing. Rather than relying on inferences based on the behavior of consumption levels or growth, we focus on consumption volatility and therefore on smoothing more directly. Consequently, we find that even though EMU tends to smooth consumption, it is not through cross-country property and claims. Rather it comes through the promotion of the tradability of goods, capital in particular: specifically, the encouragement of price competition, contestable home markets, ability to borrow and buy insurance at home, and the harmonization of regulations. Some of the consumption smoothing may also depend on EU membership rather than EMU as such but EMU adds to it. As a fundamental part of the analysis, the paper uses a new index of currency union which focuses on the ratio of trade with other countries sharing the same currency relative to total foreign trade

Trade Liberalisation and Employment Effects in Ukraine

This paper addresses the effects of trade liberalisation on job flows. It studies the case of Ukraine where the sudden opening up of the economy to trade can be viewed as a quasi-natural experiment. We use disaggregated data on manufacturing industries and customs data on trade flows to account for shifting trade patterns after the disintegration of the Soviet Union and the Council of Mutual Economic Assistance (CMEA) trade regime. We provide, for the first time, evidence on job flows at the three-digit sector level in Ukrainian manufacturing and show that these flows are predominantly driven by idiosyncratic factors within industries. However, we also establish that trade openness does affect job flows differently across different trading areas. We find that while trade with Commonwealth of Independent States decreases job destruction, trade with the European Union increases excess reallocation mainly through job creation. Comparative Economic Studies (2008) 50, 318–340. doi:10.1057/palgrave.ces.8100250