Working Papers on International
Economics and Finance
September 2010
Lourdes Moreno
Diego Rodrígue
Abstract
This paper tests the pro-competitive effect of imports on product and labour markets for Spanish manufacturing firms in the period 1990-2005. In doing so, it takes into account the type of imported products: final vs intermediate. Markups are estimated following the procedure suggested by Roegerand including an efficient bargaining model. The observed heterogeneity among(1995) firms isparameterized to consider additional product standardization and market concentrationThe resultssupport the Imports as Market Discipline hypothesis for importers of final goods, while firms that offshore intermediate inputs show similar markups to non-importers. Additionally, the union bargaining
power is smaller the more final-goods oriented imports are and the more homogeneous is the type of goods elaborated by firms.
