The employment and wage effects of import competition in Switzerland

This study explores the impact of import competition on wages and employment at the industry level. We estimate reduced‐form, industry‐level wage and employment equations. We find that, in a majority of industries, a toughening of import competition tends to reduce employment and to have an adverse effect on workers’ wages, but the magnitude of this impact is relatively modest. Our results suggest that import price variations have had very little influence on the domestic labour market.