Trade and tasks: an exploration over three decades in Germany

Abstract

This paper combines representative worker-level data that cover time-varying job-level task characteristics of an economy over several decades with sector-level bilateral trade data for merchandise and services. We carefully create longitudinally consistent workplace characteristics from the German Qualification and Career Survey 1979-2006 and prepare trade flow statistics from varying sources. Four main facts emerge: (1) intermediate inputs constitute a major share of imports and dominate German imports since at least the 1970s; (2) the German workforce increasingly specializes in workplace activities and job requirements that are typically considered non-offshorable, mainly within and not between sectors and occupations; (3) the imputed activity and job requirement content of German imports grows relatively more intensive in work characteristics typically considered offshorable; and (4) labour-market institutions at German trade partners are largely unrelated to the changing task content of German imports but German sector-level outcomes exhibit some covariation consistent with faster task offshoring in sectors exposed to lower labour-market tightness. We discuss policy implications of these findings.