IDEAS home Printed from https://ideas.repec.org/a/wly/econjl/vy2014i576p507-539.html
   My bibliography  Save this article

Trade Imbalances, Export Structure and Wage Inequality

Author

Listed:
  • Rosario Crinò
  • Paolo Epifani

Abstract

We study, both theoretically and empirically, how trade imbalances affect the structure of countries' exports and wage inequality. We show that, in a Heckscher-Ohlin model with a continuum of goods, a Southern (Northern) trade surplus leads to an increase (reduction) in the average skill intensity of exports, in the relative demand for skills and in the skill premium in both countries. We provide robust support for the mechanism underlying these predictions using a large panel of countries observed over the past 30 years. Our results suggest that the large and growing North-South trade imbalances arisen over the last three decades may have exacerbated wage inequality worldwide.
(This abstract was borrowed from another version of this item.)

Suggested Citation

  • Rosario Crinò & Paolo Epifani, 2014. "Trade Imbalances, Export Structure and Wage Inequality," Economic Journal, Royal Economic Society, vol. 0(576), pages 507-539, May.
    • Handle: RePEc:wly:econjl:v::y:2014:i:576:p:507-539
    as

    Download full text from publisher

    File URL: http://hdl.handle.net/10.1111/ecoj.2014.124.issue-576
    Download Restriction: no
    ---><---

    Other versions of this item:

    References listed on IDEAS

    as
    1. Acemoglu, Daron & Autor, David, 2011. "Skills, Tasks and Technologies: Implications for Employment and Earnings," Handbook of Labor Economics, in: O. Ashenfelter & D. Card (ed.), Handbook of Labor Economics, edition 1, volume 4, chapter 12, pages 1043-1171, Elsevier.
    2. Barro, Robert J. & Lee, Jong Wha, 2013. "A new data set of educational attainment in the world, 1950–2010," Journal of Development Economics, Elsevier, vol. 104(C), pages 184-198.
    3. Eli Berman & John Bound & Zvi Griliches, 1994. "Changes in the Demand for Skilled Labor within U. S. Manufacturing: Evidence from the Annual Survey of Manufactures," The Quarterly Journal of Economics, President and Fellows of Harvard College, vol. 109(2), pages 367-397.
    4. Laura Alfaro & Sebnem Kalemli-Ozcan & Vadym Volosovych, 2008. "Why Doesn't Capital Flow from Rich to Poor Countries? An Empirical Investigation," The Review of Economics and Statistics, MIT Press, vol. 90(2), pages 347-368, May.
    5. Daron Acemoglu, 2003. "Patterns of Skill Premia," The Review of Economic Studies, Review of Economic Studies Ltd, vol. 70(2), pages 199-230.
    6. Appleyard, Dennis R. & Conway, Patrick J. & Field, Alfred Jr., 1989. "The effects of customs unions on the pattern and terms of trade in a Ricardian model with a continuum of goods," Journal of International Economics, Elsevier, vol. 27(1-2), pages 147-164, August.
    Full references (including those not matched with items on IDEAS)

    Citations

    Citations are extracted by the CitEc Project, subscribe to its RSS feed for this item.
    as


    Cited by:

    1. Trionfetti, Federico, 2018. "Firm heterogeneity, comparative advantage and the transfer problem," European Economic Review, Elsevier, vol. 108(C), pages 246-258.
    2. David H. Autor & David Dorn & Gordon H. Hanson, 2016. "The China Shock: Learning from Labor-Market Adjustment to Large Changes in Trade," Annual Review of Economics, Annual Reviews, vol. 8(1), pages 205-240, October.
    3. Gábor Békés & Balázs Muraközy, 2018. "The ladder of internationalization modes: evidence from European firms," Review of World Economics (Weltwirtschaftliches Archiv), Springer;Institut für Weltwirtschaft (Kiel Institute for the World Economy), vol. 154(3), pages 455-491, August.
    4. Epifani, Paolo & Gancia, Gino, 2017. "Global imbalances revisited: The transfer problem and transport costs in monopolistic competition," Journal of International Economics, Elsevier, vol. 108(C), pages 99-116.
    5. Trevor Tombe & Jennifer Winter, 2021. "Fiscal integration with internal trade: Quantifying the effects of federal transfers in Canada," Canadian Journal of Economics/Revue canadienne d'économique, John Wiley & Sons, vol. 54(2), pages 522-556, May.
    6. Shen, Jim Huangnan & Long, Zhiming & Lee, Chien-Chiang & Zhang, Jun, 2022. "Comparative advantage, endowment structure, and trade imbalances," Structural Change and Economic Dynamics, Elsevier, vol. 60(C), pages 365-375.
    7. Luca Salvatici & Silvia Nenci, 2017. "New features, forgotten costs and counterfactual gains of the international trading system," European Review of Agricultural Economics, Oxford University Press and the European Agricultural and Applied Economics Publications Foundation, vol. 44(4), pages 592-633.
    8. Zhang, Junsen & Zhou, Kang, 2023. "Quota removal, destination-specific export shocks, and skill acquisition in China," Journal of Development Economics, Elsevier, vol. 165(C).

    Most related items

    These are the items that most often cite the same works as this one and are cited by the same works as this one.
    1. Raveh, Ohad & Reshef, Ariell, 2016. "Capital imports composition, complementarities, and the skill premium in developing countries," Journal of Development Economics, Elsevier, vol. 118(C), pages 183-206.
    2. Gallego, Francisco A., 2012. "Skill Premium in Chile: Studying Skill Upgrading in the South," World Development, Elsevier, vol. 40(3), pages 594-609.
    3. Harris, Richard G. & Robertson, Peter E., 2013. "Trade, wages and skill accumulation in the emerging giants," Journal of International Economics, Elsevier, vol. 89(2), pages 407-421.
    4. Anders Akerman & Ingvil Gaarder & Magne Mogstad, 2015. "The Skill Complementarity of Broadband Internet," The Quarterly Journal of Economics, President and Fellows of Harvard College, vol. 130(4), pages 1781-1824.
    5. Atolia, Manoj & Kurokawa, Yoshinori, 2016. "The impact of trade margins on the skill premium: Evidence from Mexico," Journal of Policy Modeling, Elsevier, vol. 38(5), pages 895-915.
    6. Wenchao Jin, 2022. "Occupational polarisation and endogenous task-biased technical change," Working Paper Series 0622, Department of Economics, University of Sussex Business School.
    7. P. M. Picard & A. Tampieri, 2021. "Vertical differentiation and trade among symmetric countries," Economic Theory, Springer;Society for the Advancement of Economic Theory (SAET), vol. 71(4), pages 1319-1355, June.
    8. Xu, Yang, 2022. "Structural change and the skill premium in a global economy," Journal of Economic Dynamics and Control, Elsevier, vol. 138(C).
    9. Paolo Epifani & Gino Gancia, 2008. "The Skill Bias of World Trade," Economic Journal, Royal Economic Society, vol. 118(530), pages 927-960, July.
    10. Nicholas Bloom & Tarek Alexander Hassan & Aakash Kalyani & Josh Lerner & Ahmed Tahoun, 2021. "The diffusion of disruptive technologies," CEP Discussion Papers dp1798, Centre for Economic Performance, LSE.
    11. Haichao Fan & Xiang Gao, 2017. "Domestic Creditor Rights and External Private Debt," Economic Journal, Royal Economic Society, vol. 127(606), pages 2410-2440, November.
    12. Tschopp, Jeanne, 2015. "The Wage Response to Shocks: The Role of Inter-Occupational Labour Adjustment," Labour Economics, Elsevier, vol. 37(C), pages 28-37.
    13. Nathalie Chusseau & Joël Hellier, 2012. "Globalisation and Inequality: Where do we stand?," Journal of Income Distribution, Ad libros publications inc., vol. 21(3-4), pages 7-34, November.
    14. repec:zbw:rwirep:0298 is not listed on IDEAS
    15. Lai, Tat-Kei & Wang, Luhang, 2024. "Spatial disparity of skill premium in China: The role of financial intermediation development," China Economic Review, Elsevier, vol. 85(C).
    16. Jerzmanowski, Michal & Tamura, Robert, 2019. "Directed technological change & cross-country income differences: A quantitative analysis," Journal of Development Economics, Elsevier, vol. 141(C).
    17. an de Meulen, Philipp, 2011. "Labor Heterogeneity and the Risk of Expropriation in Less Developed Countries," Ruhr Economic Papers 298, RWI - Leibniz-Institut für Wirtschaftsforschung, Ruhr-University Bochum, TU Dortmund University, University of Duisburg-Essen.
    18. Lutz Hendricks, 2010. "Cross-country variation in educational attainment: structural change or within-industry skill upgrading?," Journal of Economic Growth, Springer, vol. 15(3), pages 205-233, September.
    19. Jonathan E. Haskel, 2000. "Trade and Labor Approaches to Wage Inequality," Review of International Economics, Wiley Blackwell, vol. 8(3), pages 397-408, August.
    20. Hudomiet, Péter & Willis, Robert J., 2022. "Computerization, obsolescence and the length of working life," Labour Economics, Elsevier, vol. 77(C).
    21. Vivarelli, Marco, 2012. "Innovation, Employment and Skills in Advanced and Developing Countries: A Survey of the Literature," IZA Discussion Papers 6291, Institute of Labor Economics (IZA).

    More about this item

    JEL classification:

    • F1 - International Economics - - Trade

    Statistics

    Access and download statistics

    Corrections

    All material on this site has been provided by the respective publishers and authors. You can help correct errors and omissions. When requesting a correction, please mention this item's handle: RePEc:wly:econjl:v::y:2014:i:576:p:507-539. See general information about how to correct material in RePEc.

    If you have authored this item and are not yet registered with RePEc, we encourage you to do it here. This allows to link your profile to this item. It also allows you to accept potential citations to this item that we are uncertain about.

    If CitEc recognized a bibliographic reference but did not link an item in RePEc to it, you can help with this form .

    If you know of missing items citing this one, you can help us creating those links by adding the relevant references in the same way as above, for each refering item. If you are a registered author of this item, you may also want to check the "citations" tab in your RePEc Author Service profile, as there may be some citations waiting for confirmation.

    For technical questions regarding this item, or to correct its authors, title, abstract, bibliographic or download information, contact: Wiley Content Delivery (email available below). General contact details of provider: https://edirc.repec.org/data/resssea.html .

    Please note that corrections may take a couple of weeks to filter through the various RePEc services.

    IDEAS is a RePEc service. RePEc uses bibliographic data supplied by the respective publishers.