Foreign Investment, International Trade and Labour Markets

Event abstract

The international dimension of businesses and labour markets is an increasingly important area of research given the growth of globalisation over the last three decades. This talk will provide an overview of some recent and current empirical research in this topic, drawing disproportionately on Professor Perdro Martins' own work. It will focus on the differences in performance and working conditions amongst firms with multiple types of exposure to and engagement with the international economy. The talk will also discuss opportunities for research with novel data sets that provide information on workers, exports and imports at the product, destination/origin, and firm levels.

Speaker biography

Pedro Martins is an empirical labour economist and Professor of Applied Economics at Queen Mary College, University of London. His main research interests are in employment law/collective bargaining, employment services/training, and the role of international trade and multinationals on labour markets. His policy-oriented research draws on his experience as Secretary of State for Employment in the Government of Portugal (2011-2013) and has been supported by a number of organisations, including the European Commission, OECD, IMF, ILO, ESRC, British Academy, and IPEA. Professor Martins is also a research fellow of IZA (Bonn) and NovaSBE (Lisbon) and the head of the Scientific Council of EPIS, an NGO that promotes social inclusion.

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