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Hollweg, Claire H.

Macroeconomics, Trade, and Investment Global Practice
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Fields of Specialization
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.

Publication Search Results

Now showing 1 - 9 of 9
  • 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, Patrick
    This 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 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
    Structural Reforms and Labor Market Outcomes : International Panel Data Evidence
    (World Bank Group, Washington, DC, 2014-11) Hollweg, Claire H.; Lederman, Daniel
    This paper explores the impact of structural reforms on a comprehensive set of macro-level labor-market outcomes, including the unemployment rate, the average wage index, and overall and female employment levels and labor force participation rates. Together these outcome variables capture the overall health of the labor market and the aggregate welfare of workers. Yet, there seems to be no other comprehensive empirical investigation in the existing literature of the impact of structural reforms at the cross-country macro level on labor-market outcomes other than the unemployment rate. Data were collected from a variety of sources, including the World Bank World Development Indicators, the International Monetary Fund International Financial Statistics, and the International Labor Organization Key Indicators of the Labor Market. The resulting dataset covers up to 88 countries, the majority being developing, for 10 years on either side of structural reforms that took place between 1960 and 2001. After documenting the average trends across countries in the labor-market outcomes up to 10 years on either side of each country s structural reform year, the authors run fixed-effects ordinary least squares as well as instrumental variables regressions to account for the likely endogeneity of structural reforms to labor-market outcomes. Overall the results suggest that structural reforms lead to positive outcomes for labor. Unlike related literature, the paper does not find conclusive evidence on unemployment. Redistributive effects in favor of workers, along the lines of the Stolper-Samuelson effect, may be at work.
  • Publication
    Sticky Feet : How Labor Market Frictions Shape the Impact of International Trade on Jobs and Wages
    (Washington, DC: World Bank, 2014-06-17) Hollweg, Claire H.; Lederman, Daniel
    This 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
    Seeking Shared Prosperity through Trade
    (World Bank, Washington, DC, 2015-06) Cali, Massimiliano; Hollweg, Claire H.; Ruppert Bulmer, Elizabeth
    Increasing the trade integration of developing countries can make a vital contribution to boosting shared prosperity, but it also exposes producers and consumers to exogenous shocks that alter relative prices, sometimes positively and sometimes negatively. This paper discusses the short-run effects of trade-related shocks on households to capture the potential welfare impact on the poor. The discussion explores the channels through which trade shocks are transmitted to households in the bottom of the income distribution, namely through consumption, household production, and market-based labor activities. The degree to which price shocks are passed through from borders to point of sale is a key determinant of the gains from trade and the ultimate welfare impact. Trade changes in agriculture directly affect households through their consumption basket. Lower agricultural prices reduce the cost of consumables, but these welfare gains may be offset by lower earnings for households that produce these same goods. Poorer households tend to be net consumers of agricultural products, suggesting a net welfare gain, but agricultural wage workers could suffer from wage cuts. Because poorer households tend to consume relatively fewer nonagricultural products, that is nonessentials, any trade-related shocks to prices of nonagricultural product are likely to be transmitted via labor channels. Despite significant evidence that nonagricultural trade reform ultimately leads to job creation and enhanced productivity, the short-run effects can be mixed. The costs incurred by workers to transition to new jobs slow the adjustment of the economy to a new steady state. Labor mobility costs, which tend to be higher in developing countries and for unskilled workers, reduce the potential gains to trade by diverting labor market adjustment from its most efficient path.
  • Publication
    A Rebalancing China and Resurging India: How Will the Pendulum Swing for Russia?
    (Alex Publishers, 2017) Sanghi, Apurva; Burns, Andrew; Djiofack, Calvin; Prihardini, Dinar; Dissanayake, Jagath; Hollweg, Claire
    This report assesses the future impact of two dynamically transforming economies – China and India – on Russia’s economy. China is slowing down and rebalancing its economy whereas India is rapidly expanding. What does this hold for Russia? The report begins with a snapshot of findings, followed by eight chapters. Chapter one motivates the topic and identifies analytical and empirical gaps that this report fills. Chapter two examines the current pattern of trade between Russia and the two countries, and it discusses how important – or not – China and India’s economies are for Russia. Chapter three follows by summarizing the results of three complementary approaches for measuring Russia’s trade potential with China and India (and also the rest of the world). Chapter fourth intuitively describes the customized methodology developed for this report; its major caveats and assumptions, and its possible extensions (technical details, for those interested, are in the annexes). Chapter fifth outlines four plausible scenarios of the potential impact on Russia of changes in China and India, and chapter sixth presents the results. Chapter seventh explores the sensitivity of results to changes key in assumptions. Finally, chapter eighth concludes with emerging policy implications for Russia.
  • Publication
    Monitoring Export Vulnerability to Changes in Growth Rates of Major Global Markets
    (World Bank, Washington, DC, 2012-11) Hollweg, Claire H.; Lederman, Daniel
    Interest in assessing the impacts on developing countries of changes in major markets' economic performance has risen in tandem with global economic uncertainty over short- and medium-term growth prospects. This paper proposes a methodology to measure the vulnerability of a country's exports to fluctuations in the economic activity of foreign markets. Export vulnerability depends first on the overall level of export exposure, measured as the share of exports in gross domestic product, and second on the sensitivity of exports to fluctuations in foreign gross domestic product. The authors capture this sensitivity by estimating origin-destination specific elasticities of exports with respect to changes in foreign gross domestic product using a gravity model of trade. Furthermore, export vulnerability is computed separately for commodities and differentiated products. This methodology is applied to six developing countries, one from each World Bank region, selected to be otherwise similar yet differ in terms of the level of exposure to major global markets as well as the product composition of their export basket. Although the results suggest differences in elasticity estimates across regions as well as product categories, the principal source of international heterogeneity in export vulnerability results from differences in export exposure to global markets. This result calls for developing countries to diversify their export markets rather than shielding themselves from international markets, which would actually raise economic risk and vulnerability.
  • Publication
    Trade in Global Value Chains: An Assessment of Labor Market Implications
    (World Bank, Washington, DC, 2018-07-16) Farole, Thomas; Hollweg, Claire; Winkler, Deborah
    The paper is structured in six further sections following this introduction. Section two develops a conceptual framework, and reviews the literature on the relationship between trade integration and labor market outcomes. Section three outlines the empirical framework and data used in the analysis. Section four presents results on the relationship between overall trade integration (through exports) and labor market outcomes. Section five then focuses specifically on GVC trade, and assesses the relationship between labor market outcomes and GVC integration as a buyer and as a seller. Section six tests if select policy indicators mediate these relationships between trade integration and labor market outcomes. Finally, section seven concludes, with a summary of results and areas for future research.
  • Publication
    Trade Policy Barriers : An Obstacle to Export Diversification in Eurasia
    (World Bank, Washington, DC, 2013-05) Cusolito, Ana Paula; Hollweg, Claire H.
    Despite trade liberalization efforts made by Eurasian countries, the export structure of the region shows significant levels of concentration across export destinations. To shed light on this observation, this research analyzes trade policy barriers in Eurasia, East Asia and the Pacific, and the European Union. Using the most recent data from sources including the World Trade Organization, the United Nations, and the World Bank including the Overall Trade Restrictiveness Indices, the Services Trade Restrictions Database, and the Temporary Trade Barriers Database the role of tariffs, non-tariff measures, temporary trade barriers, trade agreements, and trade barriers in services are explored to explain the lack of diversification by destination. Several conclusions can be drawn from the analysis. First, China, Korea, and Japan, as well as the European Union, impose high levels of protection on products of animal origin, which may explain the lack of Eurasian export diversification toward the East Asia and the Pacific and the European Union regions. It also highlights the potential benefits of diversifying the structure of production in Eurasia toward more sophisticated and technologically intensive goods. Second, the East Asia and the Pacific region (especially China) appears to be more protectionist than the European Union, suggesting a greater challenge for Eurasian countries in diversifying exports to the destination. And third, few or no regional trade agreements exist between Eurasian countries and countries in the European Union or East Asia and the Pacific.