"Worker-Level Adjustment Costs in a Developing Country: Evidence from Mexico," Ray Robertson, Macalester College, 3:40 PM, 368A Heady Hall.

Abstract: Labor market adjustment costs play a significant role in many models and have recently arisen as a key component in papers that analyze the effect of international integration on labor markets. Few previous papers have explicitly recognized the difference between labor market adjustment costs on the demand (firms) and supply (workers) sides of the market. This paper describes Mexican labor market flows and estimates labor market adjustment costs on the supply side of the market using Mexican administrative data. This paper explores the role of aggregation, which has significant effects on cost estimates and compares estimates with previous estimates. These comparisons suggest that supply-side costs are much higher than demand-side costs in Mexico and that Mexican supply-side costs may be much higher than U.S. supply-side costs.

Raymond Robertson is Professor of Economics at Macalester College. His research focuses on the union of international, labor, and development economics. He has published in theAmerican Economic Review, the Review of Economics and Statistics, the Journal of International Economics, Review of International Economics, the Journal of Development Economics, and others. He is a non-resident fellow at the Center for Global Development, a member of the State Department's Advisory Committee on International Economic Policy (ACIEP), and incoming chair of the Department of Labor's National Advisory Committee for Labor Provisions of U.S. Free Trade Agreements. His current work focuses on the effects of the ILO's Better Work program in Cambodia and other countries, as well as other issues relating to the effects of globalization on workers. He received his Ph.D. from the University of Texas after spending a year in Mexico as a Fulbright Scholar.