IDEAS home Printed from https://ideas.repec.org/p/jet/dpaper/dpaper650.html
   My bibliography  Save this paper

The impact of exports on income inequality in developing countries

Author

Listed:
  • Hazama, Yasushi

Abstract

Trade exhibits two contrasting effects on income inequality in developing countries (DCs). On the one hand, trade openness benefits unskilled labor in preference to skilled labor and capital (the Stolper–Samuelson effect). On the other hand, trade openness increases the demand for skilled (rather than unskilled) labor inputs (the skill premium effect). Recent studies that provide stronger support for the skill premium model have focused on wage inequality or have chosen higher-income DCs. We test the effect of export growth on income inequality for 70 lower income DCs and 36 higher-income DCs, using an unbalanced panel dataset for the 1971–2012 period. The results show that the export/GDP ratio has a negative effect on income inequality for lower-income DCs, but no significant effect was found for higher-income DCs.

Suggested Citation

  • Hazama, Yasushi, 2017. "The impact of exports on income inequality in developing countries," IDE Discussion Papers 650, Institute of Developing Economies, Japan External Trade Organization(JETRO).
    • Handle: RePEc:jet:dpaper:dpaper650
    as

    Download full text from publisher

    File URL: https://ir.ide.go.jp/?action=repository_action_common_download&item_id=48863&item_no=1&attribute_id=22&file_no=1
    File Function: First version, 2017
    Download Restriction: no
    ---><---

    References listed on IDEAS

    as
    1. Ann Harrison & John McLaren & Margaret McMillan, 2011. "Recent Perspectives on Trade and Inequality," Annual Review of Economics, Annual Reviews, vol. 3(1), pages 261-289, September.
    2. Henry Tam, 2008. "An economic or political Kuznets curve?," Public Choice, Springer, vol. 134(3), pages 367-389, March.
    3. Wood, Adrian, 1997. "Openness and Wage Inequality in Developing Countries: The Latin American Challenge to East Asian Conventional Wisdom," The World Bank Economic Review, World Bank, vol. 11(1), pages 33-57, January.
    4. L. ALAN WINTERS & NEIL McCULLOCH & ANDREW McKAY, 2015. "Trade Liberalization and Poverty: The Evidence So Far," World Scientific Book Chapters, in: Non-Tariff Barriers, Regionalism and Poverty Essays in Applied International Trade Analysis, chapter 14, pages 271-314, World Scientific Publishing Co. Pte. Ltd..
    5. Feenstra, Robert C & Hanson, Gordon H, 1996. "Globalization, Outsourcing, and Wage Inequality," American Economic Review, American Economic Association, vol. 86(2), pages 240-245, May.
    6. John Duffy & Chris Papageorgiou & Fidel Perez-Sebastian, 2004. "Capital-Skill Complementarity? Evidence from a Panel of Countries," The Review of Economics and Statistics, MIT Press, vol. 86(1), pages 327-344, February.
    7. Beck, Nathaniel & Katz, Jonathan N., 1995. "What To Do (and Not to Do) with Time-Series Cross-Section Data," American Political Science Review, Cambridge University Press, vol. 89(3), pages 634-647, September.
    8. Joshua D. Angrist & Jörn-Steffen Pischke, 2009. "Mostly Harmless Econometrics: An Empiricist's Companion," Economics Books, Princeton University Press, edition 1, number 8769.
    9. Pinelopi Koujianou Goldberg & Nina Pavcnik, 2007. "Distributional Effects of Globalization in Developing Countries," Journal of Economic Literature, American Economic Association, vol. 45(1), pages 39-82, March.
    10. Dong, Fang, 2014. "The impact of economic openness on standard of living and income inequality in eight countries," Emerging Markets Review, Elsevier, vol. 21(C), pages 234-264.
    11. Chiara Franco & Elisa Gerussi, 2013. "Trade, foreign direct investments (FDI) and income inequality: Empirical evidence from transition countries," The Journal of International Trade & Economic Development, Taylor & Francis Journals, vol. 22(8), pages 1131-1160, December.
    12. Per Krusell & Lee E. Ohanian & JosÈ-Victor RÌos-Rull & Giovanni L. Violante, 2000. "Capital-Skill Complementarity and Inequality: A Macroeconomic Analysis," Econometrica, Econometric Society, vol. 68(5), pages 1029-1054, September.
    13. Branko Milanovic, 2005. "Can We Discern the Effect of Globalization on Income Distribution? Evidence from Household Surveys," The World Bank Economic Review, World Bank, vol. 19(1), pages 21-44.
    14. Takeshi Kawanaka & Yasushi Hazama, 2016. "Political Determinants of Income Inequality in Emerging Democracies," SpringerBriefs in Economics, Springer, edition 1, number 978-981-10-0257-1, April.
    Full references (including those not matched with items on IDEAS)

    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. Hazama, Yasushi, 2022. "Who supports free trade in developing countries and why: comparative advantage vs the skill premium," IDE Discussion Papers 855, Institute of Developing Economies, Japan External Trade Organization(JETRO).
    3. Philipp Heimberger, 2019. "Beeinflusst die ökonomische Globalisierung die Einkommensungleichheit? Eine Meta-Analyse," Wirtschaft und Gesellschaft - WuG, Kammer für Arbeiter und Angestellte für Wien, Abteilung Wirtschaftswissenschaft und Statistik, vol. 45(4), pages 497-529.
    4. 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.
    5. Wenxiao Wang & Christopher Findlay & Shandre Thangavelu, 2021. "Trade, technology, and the labour market: impacts on wage inequality within countries," Asian-Pacific Economic Literature, The Crawford School, The Australian National University, vol. 35(1), pages 19-35, May.
    6. Philipp Heimberger, 2020. "Does economic globalisation affect income inequality? A meta‐analysis," The World Economy, Wiley Blackwell, vol. 43(11), pages 2960-2982, November.
    7. Yoshimichi Murakami, 2018. "Globalization and Income Inequality in Latin America: A Review of Theoretical Developments and Recent Evidence," Discussion Paper Series DP2018-16, Research Institute for Economics & Business Administration, Kobe University, revised Aug 2018.
    8. Facundo Alvaredo & Leonardo Gasparini, 2013. "Recent Trends in Inequality and Poverty in Developing Countries," CEDLAS, Working Papers 0151, CEDLAS, Universidad Nacional de La Plata.
    9. Stephen J. Turnovsky & Zinan Wang, 2022. "The Effects of Globalization on Skilled Labor, Unskilled Labor, and the Skill Premium," Open Economies Review, Springer, vol. 33(3), pages 407-452, July.
    10. Markus Brueckner & Ngo Van Long & Joaquin L. Vespignani, 2020. "Non-Gravity Trade," Globalization Institute Working Papers 388, Federal Reserve Bank of Dallas.
    11. Ying Ge & Tony Fang & Yeheng Jiang, 2019. "Access to imported intermediates and intra‐firm wage inequality," The World Economy, Wiley Blackwell, vol. 42(8), pages 2364-2384, August.
    12. David Hummels & Jakob R. Munch & Chong Xiang, 2018. "Offshoring and Labor Markets," Journal of Economic Literature, American Economic Association, vol. 56(3), pages 981-1028, September.
    13. Jorge Saba Arbache, 2001. "Trade Liberalisation and Labor Markets in Developing Countries: Theory and Evidence," Studies in Economics 0112, School of Economics, University of Kent.
    14. Asteriou, Dimitrios & Dimelis, Sophia & Moudatsou, Argiro, 2014. "Globalization and income inequality: A panel data econometric approach for the EU27 countries," Economic Modelling, Elsevier, vol. 36(C), pages 592-599.
    15. Judith Liu & Mei‐Ying Lai & Zong‐Shin Liu, 2022. "Trade liberalization, domestic reforms, and income inequality: Evidence from Taiwan," Review of Development Economics, Wiley Blackwell, vol. 26(3), pages 1286-1309, August.
    16. Li, Hongbin & Li, Lei & Ma, Hong, 2022. "China's skill-biased imports," China Economic Review, Elsevier, vol. 74(C).
    17. Daniel Carroll & Sewon Hur, 2023. "On The Distributional Effects Of International Tariffs," International Economic Review, Department of Economics, University of Pennsylvania and Osaka University Institute of Social and Economic Research Association, vol. 64(4), pages 1311-1346, November.
    18. Phan, Diep & Coxhead, Ian, 2013. "Long-run costs of piecemeal reform: Wage inequality and returns to education in Vietnam," Journal of Comparative Economics, Elsevier, vol. 41(4), pages 1106-1122.
    19. Julien Gourdon & Nicolas Maystre & Jaime de Melo, 2015. "Openness, Inequality and Poverty: Endowments Matter," World Scientific Book Chapters, in: Developing Countries in the World Economy, chapter 20, pages 497-532, World Scientific Publishing Co. Pte. Ltd..
    20. Markus Brueckner & Ngo Van Long & Joaquin Vespignani, 2022. "Trade, education, and income inequality," Applied Economics, Taylor & Francis Journals, vol. 54(40), pages 4608-4631, August.

    More about this item

    Keywords

    Exports; Income; International trade; Labor market; Human resources; Income inequality; Skill premium; Stolper–Samuelson theorem;
    All these keywords.

    JEL classification:

    • F16 - International Economics - - Trade - - - Trade and Labor Market Interactions
    • J46 - Labor and Demographic Economics - - Particular Labor Markets - - - Informal Labor Market
    • O15 - Economic Development, Innovation, Technological Change, and Growth - - Economic Development - - - Economic Development: Human Resources; Human Development; Income Distribution; Migration

    NEP fields

    This paper has been announced in the following NEP Reports:

    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:jet:dpaper:dpaper650. 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: Michitaka Imamitsu (email available below). General contact details of provider: https://edirc.repec.org/data/idegvjp.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.