The results in Table 1 show the share of goods exports from the horticulture and wine industries is 1.7 percentage points higher for New Zealand in the period with the RSE program operating (p = 0.004), all else being the same. In other words, compared to the export shares for these products among other developed countries and to those shares for other (non-OECD) exporters of horticulture and viticulture products, and also allowing for factors that may affect exports (i.e., proxies for the level of, and change in, local demand through GDP, population levels, and growth rates, and for factors affecting supply such as agricultural area), in the RSE period New Zealand has had a significantly higher share of exports from the productive sectors that report that they have benefited from the higher quantity and quality of seasonal labor that the RSE program allows. To ensure that this finding of a significantly higher export share is not from the effects of any preexisting trends in place before the RSE came into effect, we also conducted in-time placebo tests where we considered the period up until 2007 (so the RSE logically could not have any effect) and tested whether variables for pseudo-treatments starting in either 2000, 2001, or 2002 showed the same effect that we saw in the table of a significantly higher share of exports coming from the horticulture and wine industries in the post-treatment period. We could find no such effects, with the equivalent coefficients to what is the 1.7 percentage point treatment effect in Table 1 averaging just 0.007 across these three additional regressions, and these coefficients always being statistically insignificant (with p-values averaging 0.34). Thus, even to the extent that evidence from cross-country data may not be as convincing to some economists as is other evidence, one can reasonably infer from these results that access to migrant seasonal labor under the RSE program has helped the targeted sectors to expand.

Table 1.

Effects of the Recognised Seasonal Employer Program on New Zealand Horticulture and Viticulture Exports

Share of Goods Exports from Horticulture and Viticulture SectorsValue of Annual Exports (real $) of HS codes 0808, 0810, and 2204 CoefficientStd Errorp-valueCoefficientStd Errorp-value RSE 0.0172 0.0059 0.004 667.05 224.71 0.003 log real GDP per capita −0.0087 0.0035 0.013 −1157.84 133.06 0.000 log agricultural land area 0.0034 0.0076 0.661 −241.99 289.20 0.403 log population 0.0288 0.0099 0.004 −519.43 375.25 0.167 Population growth rate −0.1755 0.1569 0.263 −10319.82 5936.34 0.082 Real GDP per capita growth rate −0.0016 0.0130 0.901 118.72 490.81 0.809 Country fixed effects Yes Yes Year fixed effects Yes Yes p-value for F-statistic (slopes = 0) 0.0095 0.0000 Share of Goods Exports from Horticulture and Viticulture SectorsValue of Annual Exports (real$) of HS codes 0808, 0810, and 2204
CoefficientStd Errorp-valueCoefficientStd Errorp-value
RSE 0.0172 0.0059 0.004 667.05 224.71 0.003
log real GDP per capita −0.0087 0.0035 0.013 −1157.84 133.06 0.000
log agricultural land area 0.0034 0.0076 0.661 −241.99 289.20 0.403
log population 0.0288 0.0099 0.004 −519.43 375.25 0.167
Population growth rate −0.1755 0.1569 0.263 −10319.82 5936.34 0.082
Real GDP per capita growth rate −0.0016 0.0130 0.901 118.72 490.81 0.809
Country fixed effects Yes   Yes
Year fixed effects Yes   Yes
p-value for F-statistic (slopes = 0) 0.0095   0.0000

GDP = gross domestic product, HS = Harmonized System, RSE = Recognised Seasonal Employer.

Notes: Based on annual observations for a sample of 46 economies from 1993 to 2016 (n = 1,058) using United Nations Comtrade data, with control variables from Food and Agriculture Organization Statistics.

Source: Authors’ calculations.

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