【Brownbag】Learning or Earning? Multinational Labor Demand and Human Capital Investment
2026/05/01
研討會日期 : 2026-05-01
時間 : 12:10
主講人 : Professor Sung-Ju Wu (吳松儒)
地點 : Conference Room B110
演講者簡介 : Dr. Sung-Ju Wu received his Ph.D. in Economics from Duke University in 2024. He is currently an Assistant Research Fellow at Academia Sinica. His main research fields are international trade/investments and economic development, with a focus on firm investment and trade participation decisions across space and the resulting welfare impacts.
演講摘要 : This paper examines how trade liberalization and multinational production co-determine schooling decisions and structural transformation in a low-income host country. We develop a multi-sector Ricardian model of trade and multinational production with endogenous schooling and occupational choice. Foreign affiliate activity expands access to foreign technologies, raises effective sectoral productivity, and changes comparative advantage across sectors. By shifting local labor demand, these changes alter wage schedules and the return to schooling, inducing workers to reallocate across education levels and occupations. In general equilibrium, technology diffusion through multinational firms interacts with relative-price movements, income effects, and sectoral expenditure patterns to generate endogenous structural transformation. The model highlights a mechanism through which multinational production can accelerate labor reallocation toward modern sectors while also changing incentives to remain in school. We use the model to rationalize and match the empirical facts from Vietnam, including higher wages in the multinational sectors, higher returns to education in the service sector, education choice, and the structural transformation process.
