2024-02-02-IMF-国际贸易带来的休闲收益_66页_1mb

The Leisure Gains from International Trade

Agustin Velasquez

Core Problem

• International trade reduces labor supply and increases leisure through income effects, as preferences show declining hours worked with rising incomes.
• Trade barriers reduction boosts real wages, prompting substitution of consumption for leisure, leading to leisure gains.

Theoretical Framework

• Multi-country Ricardian trade model shows a negative elasticity of hours worked to real wages ((\rho = -0.16)), indicating income effects dominate substitution effects.
• Labor supply elasticity to trade ((\theta \approx 0.25)) quantifies how trade openness reduces hours worked.
• Leisure gains depend on domestic trade share, hours-to-wage elasticity, and trade elasticity.

Empirical Findings

• Geographic instrument exploiting air freight cost declines (1950-1995) identifies exogenous trade variation: reducing predicted trade costs increases hours worked significantly (0.51% per unit increase in domestic trade share).
• Income effects dominate substitution effects, with trade raising GDP per worker (-3.2% per unit increase in domestic trade share), driving hours reductions.
• No significant effect on employment rate, confirming hour changes occur via the intensive margin.

Quantitative Results

• Trade openness (1950-2014) explains 2.3% to 15.1% ((\approx) 7% average) of the decline in hours per worker in high-income countries.
• Unilateral autarky could reduce leisure by 2.3 to 15.1 work days per worker per year, e.g., median country would lose 23 days.
• Welfare gains from trade increase with elastic labor supply, e.g., 0.38–1 percentage points higher utility in developed economies.

Conclusion

• Trade generates leisure gains by boosting income and reducing labor supply, with effects varying by country size, geography, and institutional factors.
• The model accommodates heterogeneity in labor supply and extends to counterfactual analyses, reinforcing trade's role in improving welfare.