Ginis in General Equilibrium: Trade, Technology and Southern Inequality / Susan Chun Zhu, Daniel Trefler.

Format:

Book

Author/Creator:

Zhu, Susan Chun.

Contributor:

National Bureau of Economic Research.

Trefler, Daniel.

Series:

Working Paper Series (National Bureau of Economic Research) no. w8446.

NBER working paper series no. w8446

Language:

English

Physical Description:

1 online resource: illustrations (black and white);

Other Title:

Ginis in General Equilibrium

Place of Publication:

Cambridge, Mass. National Bureau of Economic Research 2001.

Summary:

Within developing and newly industrialized countries, rising wage inequality is both common and highly correlated with export growth. This is incompatible with the Stolper-Samuelson theorem, but suggestive of a role for technological catch-up. We develop this insight using a model that features both Ricardian and endowments-based comparative advantage. In this model Southern catch-up induces a correlation between rising inequality and export growth. It also induces a shift in trade patterns that results in skill upgrading and rising inequality in both the South and the North. A rudimentary empirical exercise reveals that, as predicted, Southern skill upgrading is correlated with the trade-weighted average rate of Southern catch-up.

Notes:

Print version record

August 2001.