The World Income Distribution

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The World Income Distribution

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Daron Acemoglu
Jaume Ventura

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Abstract

We show that even in the absence of diminishing returns in production and technological spillovers, international trade leads to a stable world income distribution. This is because specialization and trade introduce de facto diminishing returns: countries that accumulate capital faster than average experience declining export prices, depressing the rate of return to capital and discouraging further accumulation. Because of constant returns to capital accumulation from a global perspective, the world growth rate is determined by policies, savings, and technologies, as in endogenous growth models. Because of diminishing returns to capital accumulation at the country level, the cross-sectional behavior of the world economy is similar to that of existing exogenous growth models: cross-country variation in economic policies, savings, and technology translate into crosscountry variation in incomes. The dispersion of the world income distribution is determined by the forces that shape the strength of the terms-of-trade effects- the degree of openness to international trade and the extent of specialization. © 2001 the President and Fellows of Harvard College and the Massachusetts Institute of Technology

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Article provided by MIT Press in its journal The Quarterly Journal of Economics.

Volume (Year): 117 (2002)
Issue (Month): 2 (May)
Pages: 659-694
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Handle: RePEc:tpr:qjecon:v:117:y:2002:i:2:p:659-694

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Paper
- Daron Acemoglu & Jaume Ventura, 2001. "The World Income Distribution," NBER Working Papers 8083, National Bureau of Economic Research, Inc. [Downloadable!] (restricted)
- Acemoglu, Daron & Ventura, Jaume, 2001. "The World Income Distribution," CEPR Discussion Papers 2973, C.E.P.R. Discussion Papers. [Downloadable!] (restricted)

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Charles I. Jones, . "On the Evolution of the World Income Distribution," Working Papers 97009, Stanford University, Department of Economics. [Downloadable!]
Other versions:
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Other versions:
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Other versions:
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David Hummels & James Levinsohn, 1993. "Monopolistic Competition and International Trade: Reconsidering the Evidence," NBER Working Papers 4389, National Bureau of Economic Research, Inc. [Downloadable!] (restricted)
Other versions:
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