Employment effects of removal of restrictions on the movement of natural persons in the ASEAN banking sector

Abstract

Using the FTAP-ASEAN model and GTAP 7 Database, this chapter finds that the removal of restrictions on the movement of natural persons in ASEAN’s banking sector could have non-trivial effects on employment across industries in the region, regardless of labor mobility assumptions. Despite the crowding-out effects on the domestic financial institutions, overall, this trade reform would expand production and employment in all industries. The benefits of trade reform would be higher with skill mobility. In any case, services would gain the most in terms of job creation from trade reform. Services would also absorb most of the increased labor supply, followed by manufacturing and agriculture and mining. Our results suggest that the removal of restrictions on the movement of natural persons and facilitating the mobility of labor will help mobilize a significant proportion of labor in the informal market in ASEAN and absorb the growing labor force.