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International trade and American wages in general equilibrium, 1967-1995

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  • James Harrigan

Abstract

In the last quarter century, wage inequality has increased dramatically in the United States. At the same time, the United States has become more integrated into the world economy, relative prices of final goods have changed, the capital stock has more than doubled, and the labor force has become steadily more educated. This paper estimates a flexible, empirical, general equilibrium model of wage determination in an attempt to sort out the connections between these trends. Aggregate data on prices and quantities of imports, outputs, and factor supplies are constructed from disaggregate sources. The econometric analysis concludes that wage inequality has been partly driven by changes in relative factor supplies and relative final goods prices. In contrast, imports have played a negligible direct role.

Suggested Citation

  • James Harrigan, 1998. "International trade and American wages in general equilibrium, 1967-1995," Staff Reports 46, Federal Reserve Bank of New York.
    • Handle: RePEc:fip:fednsr:46
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    References listed on IDEAS

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    Cited by:

    1. Paolo Epifani & Gino Gancia, 2008. "The Skill Bias of World Trade," Economic Journal, Royal Economic Society, vol. 118(530), pages 927-960, July.
    2. Stephen Tokarick, 2005. "Quantifying the Impact of Trade on Wages: the Role of Nontraded Goods," Review of International Economics, Wiley Blackwell, vol. 13(5), pages 841-860, November.
    3. Avraham Ebenstein & Ann Harrison & Margaret McMillan & Shannon Phillips, 2022. "Estimating The Impact Of Trade And Offshoring On American Workers Using The Current Population Surveys," World Scientific Book Chapters, in: Globalization, Firms, and Workers, chapter 12, pages 275-289, World Scientific Publishing Co. Pte. Ltd..
    4. Zeng, Dao-Zhi & Zhao, Laixun, 2010. "Globalization, interregional and international inequalities," Journal of Urban Economics, Elsevier, vol. 67(3), pages 352-361, May.
    5. Wolfgang Dauth & Sebastian Findeisen & Jens Suedekum, 2014. "The Rise Of The East And The Far East: German Labor Markets And Trade Integration," Journal of the European Economic Association, European Economic Association, vol. 12(6), pages 1643-1675, December.
    6. Don Webber, 2002. "Labour's reward across regions of the EU: a distributional dynamic approach," Applied Economics, Taylor & Francis Journals, vol. 34(3), pages 385-394.
    7. Robbins, Donald J., 2003. "The impact of trade liberalization upon inequality in developing countries : a review of theory and evidence," ILO Working Papers 993650553402676, International Labour Organization.
    8. Peter H. Lindert & Jeffrey G. Williamson, 2003. "Does Globalization Make the World More Unequal?," NBER Chapters, in: Globalization in Historical Perspective, pages 227-276, National Bureau of Economic Research, Inc.
    9. Robert Feenstra & Gordon Hanson, 2001. "Global Production Sharing and Rising Inequality: A Survey of Trade and Wages," NBER Working Papers 8372, National Bureau of Economic Research, Inc.
    10. Strauss-Kahn, Vanessa, 2003. "Globalization and wage premia: reconciling facts and theory," MPRA Paper 20410, University Library of Munich, Germany.
    11. Hamid Beladi & Sugata Marjit & Reza Oladi, 2018. "Does protectionism harm unskilled workers?," Economics and Politics, Wiley Blackwell, vol. 30(3), pages 444-450, November.

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    More about this item

    Keywords

    Wages; International trade; Imports; Income distribution;
    All these keywords.

    JEL classification:

    • F1 - International Economics - - Trade
    • F16 - International Economics - - Trade - - - Trade and Labor Market Interactions

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