A mapping of labor mobility costs in the developing world

Estimates of labor mobility costs are needed to assess the responses of employment and wages to a trade shock when factor adjustment is costly. Available methods to estimate those costs rely on panel data, which are seldom available in developing countries. In this paper, we propose a method to estimate mobility costs using data that is more easily obtainable worldwide. Our estimator matches observed employment flows with those flows predicted by a model of costly labor adjustment. We estimate a mapping of labor mobility costs for the developing world and we use those estimates to explore the response of labor markets (wages and employment) to trade policy.Centro de Estudios Distributivos, Laborales y Sociales (CEDLAS