Paper Title
Trade Openness and Unemployment: Empirical Evidence from Low-Income Countries

Abstract
This paper documents a robust empirical regularity: higher trade openness is associated with a lower unemployment rate, at least in the long-run. We establish this fact by utilizing time-series data from low-income countries. Robust empirical findings obtained from the ARDL model demonstrate that the measure of openness, along with other supportive variables, is significantly and negatively associated with unemployment. Further, this study confirms the significance of increasing human capital and industrialization as a corresponding policy in progressing liberalization. These findings hinge on our particular measure of trade openness. Therefore, we conclude that along with improving human capital and industrialization, the liberalization process instead of protectionism is of great significance in reducing unemployment in low-income countries.