Globalisation and its Effect on Inequality and Labour Markets

Abstract

This dissertation consists of three self-contained essays and contributes to the discussion on heterogeneous effects of globalisation. Chapter 2 and 3 highlight how differences on the labour market imply heterogeneous effects when markets and countries become more integrated. Chapter 2 and 4 emphasis heterogeneous regional implications of national policies in a global-ized world. Chapter 2 stresses theoretically as well as empirically that at the firm level the employment ef-fects of trade liberalisation can depend on the labour market situation of the regional labour market a firm is situated in. As such a national trade liberalisation can have regionally different consequences, since regions differ in terms of the labour market situation. Chapter 3 emphasises the possibility of firms to influence their bargaining power in the intra firm wage bargaining process and highlights the interplay of both the export and the bargaining pow-er improvement decision of a firm. Calibrating a general equilibrium, spatial quantitative model Chapter 4 studies the region and sector specific effects of changes in national corporate tax policies in a globalised world. There-by it is emphasised how the linkages in the production structure as well as sectoral and regional differences imply spillovers and heterogeneous effects of a homogeneous national policy.