International Trade and Employment: A Quantile Regression Approach

Running head: RESEARCH REPORT
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Research Report
International Trade and Employment: A Quantile Regression Approach
Student’s Name
Institutional Affiliation
Date

RESEARCH REPORT
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Research Report
Theoretical Background of the study
Research question
Does international trade affect the rate of employment in a developing country in any
way?
Motivation, target audience, and significance
From the literature reviews, the author deduced that the impact of international trade had
been focused on majorly in developed countries by most scholars while neglecting the effects in
developing countries. This resulted in the lack of clarity concerning the existence of the link
between the international trading entities and the firm-level employment thus motivating the
authors to examine and synthesize the stated research question with the use of Vietnam, a low-
level economic country as the case study (van and Tran, 2017).
However, the target audience for the report is the low-level firms in the developing
countries that engage in employing the local people to facilitate their trading activities on the
international markets. Additionally, the governments, especially in developing countries, are also
in position as the target audience. Therefore, the research question is essential to these audiences,
as it would help in enlightening on the implications of the international trade towards the
employment of the people, which on the other hand determines the local economy of the country
(Rueckert, 2018).
Hypothesis test
The authors used the following flow chart to test the hypotheses of the study where the
significance of the null and alternative hypotheses were tested thus either accepted or rejected.

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However, the rejected hypothesis was subjected to the test again using different approaches such
as the fixed-effect quantile among others.
Figure 1: Flow chart of hypothesis testing
The chart acts as the chain of thoughts in establishing the relevant hypothesis to be tested which
are inclined to the objectives of the study and the research questions. The following are the
identified hypotheses for the study.
1. The relationship between firm-level employment and the international trade.
The Null hypothesis, H0 – There is no existence of a positive linkage between firm-level
employment and the international trade in developing countries.
Alternative hypothesis, H1 – There exists a positive linkage between international trade and the
firm-level employment in developing countries.
2. The link between export promotion and employment growth