Trade-induced Unemployment in Labor-abundant and Capital-abundant OIC Countries: Asymmetric Evidence from Quantile-on-Quantile Regression

Abstract

This study aims to analyze the impact of trade openness on unemployment in labor-abundant and capital-abundant countries of Organization of Islamic Cooperation (OIC) by taking the data from 1991 to 2018. A new technique quantile-on-quantile (QQ) is applied to show how quantiles of trade openness asymmetrically affect the quantiles of unemployment by providing an appropriate framework to capture the overall dependence structure. 8 out of 10 capital-abundant countries show a positive association between trade openness and unemployment, while 7 out of 10 labor-abundant countries indicate a negative effect of trade openness on unemployment. Hence, the majority of selected labor-abundant and capital-abundant countries are validating Heckscher-Ohlin theory of international trade. The results show that the asymmetric intensity of trade-induced unemployment varies with countries at both bottom and upper quantiles of the distribution of data that require individual attention in postulating the policies related to trade and unemployment in OIC countries.