North-South Trade-induced Technological Change And The Change Of Employment In The South And North

North-South trade can not only directly result in the change of employment through import and export, but also indirectly impact employment through technological change. The technological progress effects of North-South trade have great impacts on the employment in developed countries and developing countries, which has become a focus in the fields of international economics and labour economics and has great implications for trade policy of many countries. If we consider the technological progress effects of North-South trade, the impact of North-South trade on the employment in the South and North may be not consistant with the forecast of H-O-S theory. In developed countries which are endowed with more skilled workers, unskilled workers are not hurt by the increased import competition from developing countries. In developing countries which are full of unskilled workers, unskilled workers do not benefit from the increase of employment and wage after trade with developed countries. Therefore, there are many problems about the employment effect of North-South trade deserve our intensive study. This dissertation study the impact of North-South trade on the skill structure and level of employment in developed countries and developing countries, which has great implications for the adjustment of trade policy and employment policy.Besides the introduction, the remainder of this dissertation is in six chapters.Chapter one is literature review. This chapter summarizes and comments the literatures about employment effect of trade and technology. Based on the literatures, we bring forward some problems deserved study in this dissertation.Chapter two discusses the technological progress effects of North-South trade. For developed countries, export of capital goods and intermediate inputs to developing countries make them be exposed to technology spillovers or imitation, import of low-cost labour-intensive products from developing countries make them be confronted with increased competition. When the threats of technology spillovers and import competition are increased, the firms in developed countries tend to respond to that threat by defensive innovations. For developing countries, technology spillovers of import from developing countries makes great contribution to their technological progress. This is a win-win situation for the South and the North.Chapter three theoretically analyzes the impact of the technological progress effects of North-South trade on the skill structure and level of employment. Firstly, we discuss the impact of international trade on employment and wage in the framework of H-O-S, and explores the limitation of H-O-S theory. Secondly, we introduce the factor of technology into the H-O-S framework, discuss the impact of skill-biased technological change on skill demand. Thirdly, we analyze the impact of technology innovation of North-South trade on skill upgrading in developed countries and the impact of technology spillover of North-South trade on skill upgrading in developing countries. And finally, we try to find how North-South trade and technological progress affect the level of employment. We conclude that North-South trade induce skill-biased innovation and technology spillover which will increase the demand of skilled labour and upgrade the skill structure of employment. North-South trade impact the level of employment through price mechanism, output effect and technological progress effect.Chapter four empirically analyzes the impact of North-South trade-induced technology innovation on skill structure and level of employment in developed countries from the point view of U.S.. The results are as follows. Firstly, the export in U.S. manufacturing to developing countries induces defensive skill-biased innovation, which increases the demand of skilled workers, upgrades the skill structure of employment and hurts the unskilled workers in U.S. manufacturing. Secondly, the import in U.S. manufacturing from developing countries has negative effect of innovation, which degrades the skill structure of employment and does not hurt the unskilled workers in U.S. manufacturing. And finally, if we consider the innovation effect of North-South trade, import from developing countries does not decrease the demand of labour through cutting down domestic product, but raise the rate of employment in U.S. manufacturing; export to developing countries does not increase the labour demand in labour-intensive sector of U.S. manufacturing through expanding domestic product, it only raise the rate of employment in technology-intensive sector of U.S. manufacturing.Chapter five empirically studies the impact of North-South trade-induced technology spillover on skill structure and level of employment in developing countries from the point view of China. The results show that, technology spillovers effect of import in China manufacturing from developed countries are significant and positive, which upgrades the skill structure of employment in China manufacturing. If technology spillovers effect of import is considered, import from developed countries does not reduce employment level through decreasing domestic product, but raise the rate of employment in China manufacturing, especially in technology-intensive manufacturing sector.Conclusions and policy suggestions end this dissertation in chapter six. In this chapter, we summarizes the conclusions and put forward some suggestions for the adjustment of trade policy and employment policy in the South and the North. Furthermore, we discuss some problems which deserve further study.