We analyze the effects of the unprecedented rise in trade between Germany and "the East" -China and Eastern Europe -in the period 1988 -2008 on German local labor markets. Using detailed administrative data, we exploit the cross-regional variation in initial industry structures and use trade flows of other high-income countries as instruments for regional import and export exposure. We find that the rise of "the East" in the world economy caused substantial job losses in German regions specialized in import-competing industries, both in manufacturing and beyond. Regions specialized in export-oriented industries, however, experienced even stronger employment gains and lower unemployment. In the aggregate, we estimate that this trade integration has caused some 493,000 additional jobs in the economy and contributed to retaining the manufacturing sector in Germany. We also conduct our analysis at the individual worker level, and find that trade had a stabilizing overall effect on employment relationships. Keywords

We use detailed administrative data to study the adjustment of local labor markets to industrial robots in Germany. Robot exposure, as predicted by a shift-share variable, is associated with displacement effects in manufacturing, but those are fully offset by new jobs in services. The incidence mostly falls on young workers just entering the labor force. Automation is related to more stable employment within firms for incumbents, and this is driven by workers taking over new tasks in their original plants. Several measures indicate that those new jobs are of higher quality than the previous ones. Young workers also adapt their educational choices, and substitute away from vocational training towards colleges and universities. Finally, industrial robots have benefited workers in occupations with complementary tasks, such as managers or technical scientists.

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No abstract

Standard-Nutzungsbedingungen:Die Dokumente auf EconStor dürfen zu eigenen wissenschaftlichen Zwecken und zum Privatgebrauch gespeichert und kopiert werden.Sie dürfen die Dokumente nicht für öffentliche oder kommerzielle Zwecke vervielfältigen, öffentlich ausstellen, öffentlich zugänglich machen, vertreiben oder anderweitig nutzen.Sofern die Verfasser die Dokumente unter Open-Content-Lizenzen (insbesondere CC-Lizenzen) zur Verfügung gestellt haben sollten, gelten abweichend von diesen Nutzungsbedingungen die in der dort genannten Lizenz gewährten Nutzungsrechte. Abstract: In times of high and persistent unemployment, it has become one of the most important policy tasks in many developed countries to trigger a process of sustained employment growth. An illustrative example is the policy of regional "growth-poles", which assumes that a local concentration of a specific industry in a limited geographical area will lead to a growth take-off. The theoretical rationale for this type of regional policy can be knowledge spillovers, whose importance for the economic (employment) growth has been emphasised in the endogenous growth literature. Terms of use: Documents inYet, there is a considerable debate about the precise nature of knowledge spillovers. Do the externalities accrue between sectors (Jacobs-externalities), or are they rather intra-sectoral (MAR-externalities)? Apart from the question what local economic structure is conducive for employment growth, an equally important issue concerns the timing of the impact of externalities. Is it the current economic structure that matters for employment growth, or rather the historical economic structure? If the former turns out to be the case, regional policies might become effective immediately. In the latter case the impact of policy might be slower but also longer lasting.In this paper we study the dynamics of local employment growth in West Germany from 1980 to 2001. Using dynamic panel techniques, we analyse the nature and the timing of Jacobs-and Marshall-Arrow-Romer externalities, as well as the impact of general human capital spillovers. Jacobs-externalities are stronger in manufacturing than in services, the opposite is true for MAR-externalities. General human capital spillovers are only found in manufacturing. The influence of all forms of externalities rapidly decays in time, suggesting that they are rather static than dynamic. Additionally, we look at the impact of competition, general agglomeration effects and overly high regional wages on local employment growth.