EASTERN-EUROPEAN TRADE AND THE AUSTRIAN LABOR-MARKET

Recent years have seen a major break in trade relations between Wester n and Eastern European countries. Austria experienced a large bilatera l trade creation with these countries. In this paper, the authors take a closer look at the impact this trade growth had on the Austrian lab our market. To differentiate as far as possible between different segm ents of the labour market, they concentrate on unemployment experience and wage growth for a panel of individual workers in Austrian industr y. The results show rather small employment effects, the impact on wag e growth is more pronounced with interesting modifications for mobile and immobile workers.