Trade, wages and skill accumulation in the emerging giants

• 成果类型: Article
• 署名作者: Harris, Richard G.; Robertson, Peter E.
• 署名单位: Simon Fraser University; University of Western Australia
• 刊物名称: JOURNAL OF INTERNATIONAL ECONOMICS
• ISSN/ISSBN: 0022-1996
• DOI: 10.1016/j.jinteco.2012.08.011
• 发表日期: 2013
• 页码: 407-421
• 关键词: economic growth; international trade; Skill premium; human capital; wage inequality

摘要

Concerns over rising inequality have threatened to slow the process of trade liberalization in emerging economies, such as China and India. But even if trade liberalization raises inequality, these effects may be short lived and associated with important dynamic effects such as capital and skill accumulation. Using a simple dynamic open economy model we show that trade liberalization can induce substantial human capital accumulation, and that the transition path for the skill premium can be non-monotonic. We then consider a higher dimensional version of the model which is calibrated to data for China and India. In both cases trade liberalization generates a jump in the skill premium on impact, and a fall in the long run. It also generates strong wage growth for both skilled and unskilled labor and substantial accumulation of skilled labor. (C) 2012 Elsevier B.V. All rights reserved.