Abstract This paper aims to examine the impact of foreign ownership on the employment of different skill groups in Tunisian manufacturing industries. The empirical investigation is based on a rich and unique firm-level dataset covering the period 1997–2007. The estimation of a dynamic labor demand function using the system GMM estimator brings out many interesting findings. First, results indicate that foreign ownership has a positive effect on total employment. Second, when decomposing employment according to skill level, we reveal that the foreign ownership of firms affects positively unskilled labor demand and negatively skilled labor demand. Furthermore, the effects are higher in small and medium-sized enterprises and firms belonging to low technology industries. Findings also suggest no significant differences between short- and long-run effects of foreign ownership on the employment of different skill groups. Finally, the main results of the research hold even when estimating the labor demand functions simultaneously using the three-stage least squares estimator. The policy implications are correspondingly derived.

中文翻译：

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突尼斯制造业的外国所有权和技能劳动力需求：企业层面的调查

摘要本文旨在研究外国所有权对突尼斯制造业中不同技能群体就业的影响。实证调查基于涵盖1997-2007年的丰富且独特的公司级数据集。使用系统GMM估算器估算动态劳动力需求函数带来了许多有趣的发现。首先，结果表明外资所有权对总就业有积极影响。第二，根据技能水平分解就业时，我们发现企业的外资所有权会影响正向非熟练劳动力需求和负向熟练劳动力需求。此外，在属于低技术行业的中小企业和公司中，这种影响更大。研究结果还表明，外国所有权对不同技能组的就业的短期和长期影响之间没有显着差异。最后，即使使用三阶段最小二乘估计器同时估计劳动力需求函数，该研究的主要结果仍然成立。相应地得出了政策含义。