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International Trade - Theory and Policy, 2010a

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9.4 Unemployment <strong>and</strong> <strong>Trade</strong> <strong>Policy</strong><br />

LEARNING OBJECTIVES<br />

1. Underst<strong>and</strong> that unemployment of workers in a labor market is a type of market<br />

imperfection since supply of labor does not equal dem<strong>and</strong>.<br />

2. Recognize that a trade policy can be used to correct for an unemployment imperfection.<br />

3. Learn the first-best <strong>and</strong> second-best policy options to correct for an unemployment<br />

imperfection in an import market.<br />

Consider a small perfectly competitive economy. Suppose this economy has a market imperfection in the<br />

form of relatively immobile factors of production across industries. We will imagine that the labor force<br />

develops sector-specific skills as the time of employment in an industry increases. Thus if a worker works<br />

in an industry—say, the textile industry—for a long period of time, her productivity in textile production<br />

rises relative to nontextile workers who might begin employment in the textile industry. Similarly, other<br />

Saylor URL: http://www.saylor.org/books<br />

Saylor.org<br />

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