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  3. American Economic Review
  4. May 2012
  5. Exports and Within-Plant Wage Distributions: Evidence from Mexico

American Economic Review

ISSN 0002-8282 (Print) | ISSN 1944-7981 (Online)

Exports and Within-Plant Wage Distributions: Evidence from Mexico

  • Judith A. Frías
  • David S. Kaplan
  • Eric Verhoogen
American Economic Review
vol. 102, no. 3, May 2012
(pp. 435–40)
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Abstract

This short paper examines the effect of exporting on within-plant wage distributions in employer-employee data on Mexican manufacturing plants. Using the late-1994 peso devaluation interacted with initial plant size as a source of exogenous variation in exporting and focusing on wages at the 10th, 25th, 50th, 75th and 90th percentiles within each plant, we document three patterns: (1) there is no evidence of an effect of exporting on wages at the 10th percentile; (2) the wage effects of exporting are larger at higher percentiles, up to the 75th; and (3) there is no evidence of an increase in dispersion within the top quartile.

Citation

Frías, Judith A., David S. Kaplan, and Eric Verhoogen. 2012. "Exports and Within-Plant Wage Distributions: Evidence from Mexico." American Economic Review, 102 (3): 435–40. DOI: 10.1257/aer.102.3.435

Additional Materials

JEL Classification

  • F14 Country and Industry Studies of Trade
  • J31 Wage Level and Structure; Wage Differentials
  • O15 Economic Development: Human Resources; Human Development; Income Distribution; Migration
  • O19 International Linkages to Development; Role of International Organizations
  • F16 Trade and Labor Market Interactions