Economic globalization in the form of increased trade flows has a multitude of potential consequences. For example, there is a substantial body of empirical research that has documented the superior performance characteristics of exporting firms relative to non-exporters, with respect to e.g. productivity or wages (see Schank et. al., 2006 for a recent overview), generally attributed to self-selection effects (e.g. Bernard and Jensen, 2004). Thus far, few studies have investigated the underlying business and employee characteristics of importing firms, or of firms that engage in both exports and imports (two-way traders). This is an important omission given the role imports can play in both productivity and employment, the size and number of firms engaged in imports, the increased importance of outsourcing (resulting in imported intermediate goods and services), and the large number of firms that engage in both types of trade.

This paper develops an integrated employer-employee dataset for the Netherlands (2002-2008), enabling links between employee level information (in the form of earned wages and employee characteristics, such as gender, age, country of origin) with employer level information data (including trading status and other detailed trade data, enterprise size, sector of activity, and ownership). In this way, we can empirically establish and quantify the effect of trading on productivity, wages and employment for the Dutch context. Especially for the Netherlands, with its open economy and major reliance on trading and its international economic outlook, it is interesting to be able to shed new light not only on the economic but also the social consequences of globalization.

Keywords: Linked employer-employee data; Globalization; International trade; Employment

Biography: Dr. Fabienne Fortanier is Senior Statistical Researcher at Statistics Netherlands. She is responsible for developing the research program on globalization, which aims to monitor the trends in internationalization of the Dutch economy and its consequences for economic growth, employment and innovation. In addition, Fabienne Fortanier is Assistant Professor of International Business at the University of Amsterdam.