IDEAS home Printed from https://ideas.repec.org/p/stc/stcp3e/2001156e.html
   My bibliography  Save this paper

The Impact of International Trade on the Wages of Canadians

Author

Listed:
  • Zakhilwal, Omar

Abstract

Developments in the relative wages of more and less educated workers during the early 1990s are examined using the Survey of Labour and Income Dynamics. Particular attention is paid to the role of international trade in determining the wage differential between workers with post-secondary certification and those without. It is shown that in the absence of the relatively greater growth in the supply of more educated workers, the gap between the wages of more and less educated workers would have increased. After controlling for some of the most likely influences on real wages it is found that international trade has a significant positive impact on the wages of both more and less educated workers. However, the impact on the more highly educated seems to be some four times stronger, roughly the same as the impact of technological change

Suggested Citation

  • Zakhilwal, Omar, 2001. "The Impact of International Trade on the Wages of Canadians," Analytical Studies Branch Research Paper Series 2001156e, Statistics Canada, Analytical Studies Branch.
  • Handle: RePEc:stc:stcp3e:2001156e
    as

    Download full text from publisher

    File URL: https://www150.statcan.gc.ca/n1/en/catalogue/11F0019M2001156
    Download Restriction: no
    ---><---

    References listed on IDEAS

    as
    1. Marvin H. Kosters, 1991. "Workers and Their Wages: Changing Patterns in the United States," Books, American Enterprise Institute, number 52907, September.
    2. Steven Saeger, 1997. "Globalization and deindustrialization: Myth and reality in the OECD," Review of World Economics (Weltwirtschaftliches Archiv), Springer;Institut für Weltwirtschaft (Kiel Institute for the World Economy), vol. 133(4), pages 579-608, December.
    3. George J. Borjas & Richard B. Freeman & Lawrence F. Katz, 1992. "On the Labor Market Effects of Immigration and Trade," NBER Chapters, in: Immigration and the Work Force: Economic Consequences for the United States and Source Areas, pages 213-244, National Bureau of Economic Research, Inc.
    4. Lucas, Robert E, Jr, 1993. "Making a Miracle," Econometrica, Econometric Society, vol. 61(2), pages 251-272, March.
    5. Eli Berman & John Bound & Zvi Griliches, 1993. "Changes in the Demand for Skilled Labor within U.S. Manufacturing Industries: Evidence from the Annual Survey of Manufacturing," NBER Working Papers 4255, National Bureau of Economic Research, Inc.
    6. Richard B. Freeman, 1995. "Are Your Wages Set in Beijing?," Journal of Economic Perspectives, American Economic Association, vol. 9(3), pages 15-32, Summer.
    7. Daron Acemoglu, 1999. "Changes in Unemployment and Wage Inequality: An Alternative Theory and Some Evidence," American Economic Review, American Economic Association, vol. 89(5), pages 1259-1278, December.
    8. Wood, Adrian, 1998. "Globalisation and the Rise in Labour Market Inequalities," Economic Journal, Royal Economic Society, vol. 108(450), pages 1463-1482, September.
    9. Richard B. Freeman & Karen Needels, 1993. "Skill Differentials in Canada in an Era of Rising Labor Market Inequality," NBER Chapters, in: Small Differences That Matter: Labor Markets and Income Maintenance in Canada and the United States, pages 45-68, National Bureau of Economic Research, Inc.
    10. Grossman, Gene M. & Helpman, Elhanan, 1995. "Technology and trade," Handbook of International Economics, in: G. M. Grossman & K. Rogoff (ed.), Handbook of International Economics, edition 1, volume 3, chapter 25, pages 1279-1337, Elsevier.
    11. Slaughter, Matthew J, 1998. "International Trade and Labour-Market Outcomes: Results, Questions, and Policy Options," Economic Journal, Royal Economic Society, vol. 108(450), pages 1452-1462, September.
    12. Hausman, Jerry A & Taylor, William E, 1981. "Panel Data and Unobservable Individual Effects," Econometrica, Econometric Society, vol. 49(6), pages 1377-1398, November.
    13. Morissette, Rene, 1995. "Why Has Inequality in Weekly Earnings Increased in Canada?," Analytical Studies Branch Research Paper Series 1995080e, Statistics Canada, Analytical Studies Branch.
    14. Kevin M. Murphy & W. Craig Riddell & Paul M. Romer, 1998. "Wages, Skills, and Technology in the United States and Canada," NBER Working Papers 6638, National Bureau of Economic Research, Inc.
    15. Findlay, Ronald & Kierzkowski, Henryk, 1983. "International Trade and Human Capital: A Simple General Equilibrium Model," Journal of Political Economy, University of Chicago Press, vol. 91(6), pages 957-978, December.
    16. Edward E. Leamer, 1992. "Wage Effects of A U.S. - Mexican Free Trade Agreement," NBER Working Papers 3991, National Bureau of Economic Research, Inc.
    17. Hakura, D. & Deardorff, A.V., 1993. "Trade and Wages: What Are the Questions?," Working Papers 341, Research Seminar in International Economics, University of Michigan.
    18. Galbraith, James K & Calmon, Paulo Du Pin, 1996. "Wage Change and Trade Performance in U.S. Manufacturing Industries," Cambridge Journal of Economics, Cambridge Political Economy Society, vol. 20(4), pages 433-450, July.
    19. 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.
    20. Baldwin, John R. & Raffiquzzaman, Mohammed, 1998. "The Effect of Technology and Trade on Wage Differentials Between Nonproduction and Production Workers in Canadian Manufacturing," Analytical Studies Branch Research Paper Series 1998098e, Statistics Canada, Analytical Studies Branch.
    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. Nabil Annabi & Maxime Fougere & Min Li, 2013. "Foreign Competition and Income Distribution in Canada: A Dynamic Microsimulation CGE Model Analysis," International Economic Journal, Taylor & Francis Journals, vol. 27(4), pages 525-547, December.

    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. Eugene Beaulieu & Vivek Dehejia & Hazrat-Omar Zakhilwal, 2004. "International Trade, Labour Turnover, and the Wage Premium: Testing the Bhagwati-Dehejia Hypothesis for Canada," CESifo Working Paper Series 1149, CESifo.
    2. Jeff Borland, 2000. "Economic Explanations of Earnings Distribution Trends in the International Literature and Application to New Zealand," Treasury Working Paper Series 00/16, New Zealand Treasury.
    3. Robert Z. Lawrence & Matthew J. Slaughter, 1993. "International Trade and American Wages in the 1980s: Giant Sucking Sound or Small Hiccup?," Brookings Papers on Economic Activity, Economic Studies Program, The Brookings Institution, vol. 24(2 Microec), pages 161-226.
    4. Lars Calmfors & Giancarlo Corsetti & Michael P. Devereux & Gilles Saint-Paul & Hans-Werner Sinn & Jan-Egbert Sturm & Xavier Vives, 2008. "Chapter 3: The effect of globalisation on Western European jobs: curse or blessing?," EEAG Report on the European Economy, CESifo, vol. 0, pages 71-104, February.
    5. R. E. Baldwin & G. G. Cain, "undated". "Shifts in U.S. Relative Wages: The Role of Trade, Technology, and Factor Endowments," Institute for Research on Poverty Discussion Papers 1132-97, University of Wisconsin Institute for Research on Poverty.
    6. David H. Autor & Frank Levy & Richard J. Murnane, 2003. "The Skill Content of Recent Technological Change: An Empirical Exploration," The Quarterly Journal of Economics, President and Fellows of Harvard College, vol. 118(4), pages 1279-1333.
    7. R. Nahuis & H.M. de Groot, 2003. "Rising Skills Premia. You ain't seen nothing yet," Working Papers 03-02, Utrecht School of Economics.
    8. Daniel Trefler, 1997. "Immigrants and Natives in General Equilibrium Trade Models," NBER Working Papers 6209, National Bureau of Economic Research, Inc.
    9. Steven Saeger, 1997. "Globalization and deindustrialization: Myth and reality in the OECD," Review of World Economics (Weltwirtschaftliches Archiv), Springer;Institut für Weltwirtschaft (Kiel Institute for the World Economy), vol. 133(4), pages 579-608, December.
    10. Kar, Saibal & Beladi, Hamid, 2004. "Skill formation and international migration: welfare perspective of developing countries," Japan and the World Economy, Elsevier, vol. 16(1), pages 35-54, January.
    11. Cecilia Garcia-Penalosa & Campbell leith & Chol-Won Li, 2001. "Wage Inequality and the Effort Incentive Effects of Technical Progress," Working Papers 2001_14, Business School - Economics, University of Glasgow.
    12. Paolo Figini & Holger Görg, 1999. "Multinational companies and wage inequality in the host country: The case of Ireland," Review of World Economics (Weltwirtschaftliches Archiv), Springer;Institut für Weltwirtschaft (Kiel Institute for the World Economy), vol. 135(4), pages 594-612, December.
    13. Paul Segerstrom & Elias Dinopoulos, 1999. "A Schumpeterian Model of Protection and Relative Wages," American Economic Review, American Economic Association, vol. 89(3), pages 450-472, June.
    14. Johnson, Joanne & Baldwin, John R. & Gray, Tara, 1996. "Technology-induced Wage Premia in Canadian Manufacturing Plants During the 1980s," Analytical Studies Branch Research Paper Series 1996092e, Statistics Canada, Analytical Studies Branch.
    15. Haskel, Jonathan & Slaughter, Matthew J, 2001. "Trade, Technology and U.K. Wage Inequality," Economic Journal, Royal Economic Society, vol. 111(468), pages 163-187, January.
    16. Lücke, Matthias, 1999. "Sectoral value added prices, TFP growth, and the low-skilled wage in high-income countries," Kiel Working Papers 923, Kiel Institute for the World Economy (IfW Kiel).
    17. Daron Acemoglu, 2003. "Cross-Country Inequality Trends," Economic Journal, Royal Economic Society, vol. 113(485), pages 121-149, February.
    18. Edward Wolff, 2006. "The growth of information workers in the US economy, 1950-2000: the role of technological change, computerization, and structural change," Economic Systems Research, Taylor & Francis Journals, vol. 18(3), pages 221-255.
    19. Feenstra, R.C. & Hanson, G.H., 1995. "Foreign Investment, Outsourcing and Relative Wages," Papers 95-14, California Davis - Institute of Governmental Affairs.
    20. Lisandro Abrego & John Whalley, 1999. "The Choice of Structural Model in Trade-Wages Decompositions," CSGR Working papers series 34/99, Centre for the Study of Globalisation and Regionalisation (CSGR), University of Warwick.

    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:stc:stcp3e:2001156e. 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: Mark Brown (email available below). General contact details of provider: https://edirc.repec.org/data/stagvca.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.