The Czech intra-industry trade and its labor market determinants

This paper investigates the nature of the Czech intra-industry trade (IIT) and its labor market determinants. In the analysis of IIT its decomposition into vertical and horizontal components is used. The Czech Grubel-Lloyd Index of 75 % at the SITC 2 digit level is still somehow lower than the values for comparable EU countries, but this difference is not high. This indicates relatively high level of the Czech integration into the European and world economies. Also the structure of the Czech IIT with respect to its horizontal and vertical elements is comparable with the structure of IIT in EU countries. The results of cross-industry analysis of labor market determinants of IIT show that labor market characteristics are statistically significant predictors for IIT after controlling for structure of IIT, character of industry and time changes.