Person: Hollweg, Claire H.
Macroeconomics, Trade, and Investment Global Practice
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International trade, Global value chains, Services, Labor markets, Development economics
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Macroeconomics, Trade, and Investment Global Practice
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Last updated: January 31, 2023
Biography
Claire H. Hollweg is a senior economist with the Macroeconomics, Trade, and Investment Global Practice of the World Bank. Before studying economics, she worked as a journalist. She has worked with the government of South Australia and the Pacific Economic Cooperation Council in Singapore. Her research interests include development economics, with a focus on the nexus between trade, labor markets, servicification of manufacturing, and upgrading in global value chains. She holds a PhD and an MA in economics from the University of Adelaide.
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Now showing 1 - 4 of 4
Publication The Labor Impact of Lao Export Growth(World Bank, Washington, DC, 2016-02) Ruppert Bulmer, Elizabeth; Hollweg, Claire H.As countries become increasingly integrated into the global economy, increased trade links with other countries translate into increased access to better or cheaper imports and increased demand for exports. Both can have an impact on consumers, producers and workers through household consumption, household production, and labor incentives. The channels through which increased trade integration can affect labor include: (i) the consumption channel, typically leading to an increase in purchasing power and therefore higher real wages, and (ii) the employment effect due to increased labor demand. The extent of these gains to trade will depend on the incidence of trade policies or trade shocks; in other words, the impact will depend on which products become less expensive, which sectors increase demand for skilled or unskilled labor, and which workers can access these new jobs. This report utilizes a range of methodologies and datasets that implicitly link trade and jobs; by using these complementary analytical approaches, we generate multiple perspectives on Lao PDR’s recent labor market outcomes, and their implications for Lao PDR’s current and future trade competitiveness.Publication Sticky Feet : How Labor Market Frictions Shape the Impact of International Trade on Jobs and Wages(Washington, DC: World Bank, 2014-06-17) Rojas, Diego; Hollweg, Claire H.; Ruppert Bulmer, Elizabeth; Lederman, DanielThis report analyzes the paths by which developing country labor markets adjust to permanent trade-related shocks. Trade shocks can bring about reallocation of labor between industries, but the presence of labor mobility costs implies economy-wide losses because they extend the period of economic adjustment. This report focuses primarily on the adjustment costs faced by workers after a trade shock, because of magnitude and welfare implications and policy relevance. From a policy viewpoint, understanding the relative magnitudes of labor mobility and adjustment costs can help policymakers design trade policies that are consistent with employment objectives, can be complemented by labor policies, or support programs to facilitate labor transitions, or both. To complement and validate the analysis based on structural choice models, the study designed a distinct empirical approach using reduced-form econometric estimation strategies. This approach examines the impact of structural reforms and worker displacement on labor market outcomes. This makes it possible to estimate the time required to adjust to a trade-related shock, but does not assume the rigid underlying relationship inherent in structural models. This report is organized as follows: chapter one gives introduction. Chapter two presents evidence from the literature on the relative magnitude of labor adjustment costs borne by workers and by firms. Chapter three presents a new database of country-level labor mobility cost estimates for both developing and developed economies. Chapter four showcases country case studies in which labor mobility costs vary by industry, firm size, and worker type (for example, informal versus. formal). Chapter five analyzes the impact of structural reforms on aggregate labor market outcomes across countries and the effect of worker displacement due to plant closings on the employment outcomes of individual workers in Mexico. Chapter six concludes with a summary of the main findings about the labor adjustment costs associated with trade-related shocks and a discussion of policy responses internationally.Publication The Labor Content of Exports Database(World Bank, Washington, DC, 2016-03) Cali, Massimiliano; Francois, Joseph; Hollweg, Claire H.; Manchin, Miriam; Oberdabernig, Doris Anita; Rojas-Romagosa, Hugo; Rubinova, Stela; Tomberger, PatrickThis paper develops a novel methodology to measure the quantity of jobs and value of wages embodied in exports for a large number of countries and sectors for intermittent years between 1995 and 2011. The resulting Labor Content of Exports database allows the examination of the direct contribution of labor to exports as well as the indirect contribution via other sectors of the economy for skilled and unskilled labor. The analysis of the new data sets documents several new findings. First, the global share of labor value added in exports has been declining globally since 1995, but it has increased in low-income countries. Second, in line with the standard Hecksher-Ohlin trade model, the composition of labor directly contained in exports is skewed toward skilled labor in high-income countries relative to developing countries. However, that is not the case for the indirect labor content of exports. Third, manufacturing exports are a key source of labor demand in other sectors, especially in middle- and low-income countries. And the majority of the indirect demand for labor spurred by exports is in services sectors, whose workers are the largest beneficiaries of exporting activities globally. Fourth, differences in the labor value added in exports share across developing countries appears to be driven more by differences in the composition of exports rather than in sector labor intensities. Finally, average wages typically increase rapidly enough with the process of economic development to more than compensate the loss in jobs per unit of exports. The paper also includes the necessary information to build the Labor Content of Exports database from the original raw data, including stata do-files and matlab files, as well as descriptions of the variables in the data set.Publication The Labor Content of Exports in South Africa and Botswana: A Preliminary Exploration(World Bank, Washington, DC, 2015-01) Calì, Massimiliano; Hollweg, ClaireThe LACEX dataset has been recently assembled to compute the (direct and indirect) value of the compensation of employees linked to exports for each sector/country/year. The data has been computed on the basis of a panel of global input-output data spanning intermittent years from 1995 to 2007 from the Global Trade Analysis Project (GTAP). This represents a form of social accounting data - a variation on the social accounting matrix (SAM) where incomes are shown in the rows of the SAM while expenditures are shown in the columns. The structure of the data provides a comprehensive and consistent record of national income accounting relationships between different sectors and regions, including intermediate and final demand linkages. This structure of the dataset allows one to obtain the value added content of final output and exports, including its compensation of employees’ component. That includes both the direct and indirect compensation, based on the backward linkages of each sector with the rest of the economy. In order to obtain these labor value added measures, two intermediate multiplier matrixes need to be calculated. The first is the Leontief inverse matrix, which measures the inputs contained in a unit of final output. This matrix contains both direct and indirect inputs. Next, one needs to calculate a matrix which has the compensation of employees’ shares of total output. Using these two matrixes as multipliers one can obtain the compensation of employees’ shares of exports and final outputs. These shares are also split between skilled and unskilled workers.