Book contents
- Frontmatter
- Contents
- List of contributors
- Preface
- 1 Introduction
- Part I Underground classics
- Part II Current Perspectives
- Part III International trade
- Part IV Economic geography
- 10 The core–periphery model key features and effects
- 11 Globalisation, wages and unemployment: a new economic geography perspective
- 12 Empirical research in geographical economics
- 13 The monopolistic competition model in urban economic geography
- Part V Economic growth
- Part VI Macroeconomics
- Index
11 - Globalisation, wages and unemployment: a new economic geography perspective
Published online by Cambridge University Press: 22 September 2009
- Frontmatter
- Contents
- List of contributors
- Preface
- 1 Introduction
- Part I Underground classics
- Part II Current Perspectives
- Part III International trade
- Part IV Economic geography
- 10 The core–periphery model key features and effects
- 11 Globalisation, wages and unemployment: a new economic geography perspective
- 12 Empirical research in geographical economics
- 13 The monopolistic competition model in urban economic geography
- Part V Economic growth
- Part VI Macroeconomics
- Index
Summary
Introduction
There is considerable cross-country variance in unemployment and employment performance as well as in the evolution of industrial and occupational structure. Differences are in particular striking between the US and Europe, but there are also substantial differences among European countries. (Burda and Dluhosch, 1998, p. 5)
This quotation is from an interesting study that tries to analyse the relevance of globalisation for the observed changes in wages and unemployment of low-skilled labour in Western industrialised countries. The empirical evidence suggests that this relevance varies significantly across these countries (OECD, 1997). In some countries globalisation, either through increased trade or increased factor mobility, is thought to have had an adverse impact on particularly the relative wages of low-skilled workers, whereas in other countries relative low-skilled wages are hardly affected or have even increased. Moreover, in some cases the impact of globalisation does not seem to show up in relative wage changes but (also) in an increase in the relative unemployment of low-skilled labour (Dewatripont, Sapir and Sekkat, 1999). One possibility to explain these differences is that there may be considerable cross-country variation in the degree of globalisation as well as in the workings of national labour markets. With respect to the latter the well-known differences in wage flexibility between notably the USA and the UK and the continental European countries come to mind (Layard, Nickell and Jackman, 1991).
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- Information
- The Monopolistic Competition Revolution in Retrospect , pp. 236 - 260Publisher: Cambridge University PressPrint publication year: 2001
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