Importing Skill-Biased Technology

• 成果类型: Article
• 署名作者: Burstein, Ariel; Cravino, Javier; Vogel, Jonathan
• 署名单位: University of California System; University of California Los Angeles; National Bureau of Economic Research; Columbia University
• 刊物名称: AMERICAN ECONOMIC JOURNAL-MACROECONOMICS
• ISSN/ISSBN: 1945-7707
• DOI: 10.1257/mac.5.2.32
• 发表日期: 2013
• 页码: 32-71
• 关键词: INTERNATIONAL-TRADE; INEQUALITY; income; COMPLEMENTARITY; substitution

摘要

The production of capital equipment is concentrated among a small group of countries, and many countries import a large share of their equipment. If capital-skill complementarity is an important feature of technology, international trade may have important effects on the skill premium through its impact on equipment accumulation. In this paper we propose a tractable framework for evaluating this effect, provide simple analytic expressions linking observable changes in import shares by sector to changes in real wages of skilled and unskilled workers (and, therefore, the skill premium), and quantify the importance of this effect for a large set of countries. (JEL E22, F11, F16, J24, L64)