Suchergebnisse

Since September 2000, as a result of mobility restrictions, the supply of Palestinian workers competing for local jobs in the West Bank has increased by about fifty percent. This paper takes advantage of this unique natural experiment to study the effects of labor supply shocks on labor market outcomes. Using quarterly information on wages and employment in each city in the West Bank, the paper analyzes the short-run adjustment of labor markets to a large inflow of workers separately from the effects of political instability. The results suggest that low-skilled wages are adversely affected by an increase in the supply of low- and high-skilled workers, while high- skilled wages are only weakly negatively related to an increase in their own supply. This is consistent with a scenario in which high skilled workers compete for low skilled jobs, pushing the low skilled into unemployment. This latter hypothesis is confirmed by analyzing the effects of changes in labor supply on unemployment.

No previous study has attempted to estimate the effect of intrauterine exposure to armed conflict, a potential source of stress, on pregnancy outcomes. Drawing on data from the 2004 Palestinian Demographic and Health Survey, we examine the relationship between fatalities caused by Israeli security forces (a measure of conflict intensity) and birth weight. Our estimates suggest that first-trimester fatalities are positively related to the probability that a child weighed less than 2,500 grams at birth. This result is consistent with medical studies showing a strong negative correlation between self-reported stress during the first trimester of pregnancy and birth weight.

Abstract
This paper studies the gendered labor market and demographic effects of trade liberalization in Peru. To identify these effects, we use variation in the exposure of local labor markets to import competition from China based on their baseline industrial composition. On average, the increase in Chinese imports during 1998–2008 led to a persistent decline in the employment share of low-educated female workers but had smaller and transitory effects on the employment of low-educated men. In contrast to the predictions of Becker's model of household specialization, we find that the increase in import competition during this period increased the share of single low-educated people and decreased their marriage rates. There is little evidence that import competition affected fertility decisions. The results highlight the role of gains from joint consumption in marriage formation.