Tobias Seidel

Rigid Labour Markets with Trade and Capital Mobility: Theory and Evidence

We develop a multi-country model with imperfect labour markets to study the effect of labour market frictions on bilateral trade flows. We use a framework that allows for goods trade and capital mobility and show that labour market imperfections exert opposite effects in the absence of capital mobility (the short run) and its presence (the long run), respectively. In the short run, a higher degree of labour market rigidity decreases the value of total trade, but increases the share of intra-industry trade for a country that is larger than its trading partner. The reverse effects are observed when capital is allowed to cross country borders. Using data on unemployment and income distribution for 23 OECD countries, we compute the central parameter in our theoretical model that describes the degree of labour market rigidity. We use this new empirical concept to provide evidence for our theoretical findings by means of reduced-form regressions as well as simulation results of a calibrated general equilibrium model.

Intra-regional Tax Competition and Economic Geography

We extent a solvable version of the core-periphery agglomeration model to four countries located in two regions. The paper shows that there might still be a race to the bottom in capital income tax rates despite agglomeration rents earned by the mobile factor. We find that intra-regional tax competition is detrimental from a welfare perspective and that tax harmonisation unambiguously makes both countries in the core region better off.

Foreign Market Entry Under Incomplete Contracts

I show in this paper that incomplete contracts affect a firm’s decision about serving foreign customers through exports or local sales from an affiliated plant. When contracts between two agents within a firm are too costly to write, the share of multinational firms may be higher or lower compared to a world without contractual frictions. Incomplete contracts also provide a novel explanation for why horizontal multinational activity may increase when trade costs fall - a result that is at odds with the proximity-concentration trade-off.

The Competitive Effects of Credit Constraints in the Global Economy

As credit constraints exclude some firms from external finance and thus from market entry, they affect prices and markups by altering the degree of competition. Lower credit constraints allow less productive firms to enter with the following consequences. On the one hand, more competition tends to reduce average prices, but on the other hand, less productive firms charge above‐average prices. The overall effect is thus ambiguous. We therefore formulate and structurally estimate a quantitative multi‐country version of the model to gauge the direction and magnitude of the effects of credit constraints in a model with variable firm‐specific markups over marginal costs. In a sample of 11 European countries’ manufacturing sectors between 2000 and 2005, we find that an abolishment of credit constraints reduces markups by about 6.1% on average, while average prices are predicted to increase by 1.6%. The latter indicates that the effect of credit constraints on productivity dominates the one on competition.

A SPATIAL PERSPECTIVE ON EUROPEAN INTEGRATION: HETEROGENEOUS WELFARE AND MIGRATION EFFECTS FROM THE SINGLE MARKET AND THE BREXIT: A SPATIAL PERSPECTIVE ON EUROPEAN INTEGRATION

We use a quantitative model to study the implications of European integration for welfare and migration flows across 1,318 regions. The model suggests that an increase of trade barriers to the level of 1957 reduces welfare by about 1-2 percent on average, depending on the presumed trade elasticity. However, remote regions may face initial welfare losses of up to 4 percent causing an estimated migration of about 8 million individuals to the European core. This implies that the dismantling of trade barriers in Europe has led to a more homogeneous spatial distribution of economic activity. With regard to the Brexit, we find moderate welfare losses for the UK of -0.44 percent in the most pessimistic scenario while continental Europe’s welfare declines by 0.18 percent. In the most unfavorable scenario, about 500,000 people would leave the UK in the long run.

Firm Integration Strategies and Imperfect Labour Markets

This paper introduces labour market imperfections into a three-country model to study the determinants of firm integration strategies in an open economy. Accounting simultaneously for the decision upon in-house production versus international outsourcing and the decision upon exporting versus horizontal foreign investment, the analysis points to a crucial role of labour market frictions for the interaction of vertical and horizontal aspects of firm integration strategies in a general equilibrium environment. Beyond that, the analysis sheds light on the consequences of integrating developing countries into the global market, thereby pointing to hitherto unexplored effects arising from adjustments of firm integration strategies. In a welfare analysis, we show that the existence of gains from trade crucially depends on whether firm integration strategies are endogenous or not.