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Trade liberalization and intergenerational occupational mobility in urban India

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  • Ahsan, Reshad N.
  • Chatterjee, Arpita

Abstract

We exploit highly disaggregated occupation data to examine the impact of trade liberalization on intergenerational occupational mobility in urban India. We find that sons that live in urban Indian districts with a greater exposure to trade liberalization have a higher probability of being in a better occupation than their father. Taken together, our results allow us to make two new contributions to the literature on trade and inequality. First, we show that the same mechanism that causes greater cross-sectional inequality, higher relative demand for skill, also facilitates intergenerational occupational mobility. Second, we show that increased investment in education alone need not facilitate intergenerational occupational mobility. Instead, it only does so in urban districts where there has been a sufficient increase in the employment share of high-skill occupations.

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  • Ahsan, Reshad N. & Chatterjee, Arpita, 2017. "Trade liberalization and intergenerational occupational mobility in urban India," Journal of International Economics, Elsevier, vol. 109(C), pages 138-152.
    • Handle: RePEc:eee:inecon:v:109:y:2017:i:c:p:138-152
    DOI: 10.1016/j.jinteco.2017.08.010
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    4. Emran, M. Shahe & Jiang, Hanchen & Shilpi, Forhad, 2020. "Gender Bias and Intergenerational Educational Mobility: Theory and Evidence from China and India," GLO Discussion Paper Series 497, Global Labor Organization (GLO).
    5. Emran, M. Shahe & Shilpi, Forhad, 2017. "Estimating Intergenerational Mobility with Incomplete Data: Coresidency and Truncation Bias in Rank-Based Relative and Absolute Mobility Measures," MPRA Paper 80724, University Library of Munich, Germany.
    6. Jinchao Wang & Changfu Luo, 2022. "Social Mobility and Firms’ Total Factor Productivity: Evidence from China," Sustainability, MDPI, vol. 14(22), pages 1-19, November.
    7. Mitra, Devashish & Pham, Hoang & Ural Marchand, Beyza, 2022. "Enhanced Intergenerational Occupational Mobility through Trade Expansion: Evidence from Vietnam," Working Papers 2022-9, University of Alberta, Department of Economics.
    8. Sandhya R. Mahapatro & Renu Choudhary, 2022. "Intergenerational educational and occupational mobility among scheduled castes in rural Bihar," Journal of Social and Economic Development, Springer;Institute for Social and Economic Change, vol. 24(1), pages 65-84, June.
    9. Heyman, Fredrik & Olsson, Martin, 2022. "Long-Run Effects of Technological Change: The Impact of Automation and Robots on Intergenerational Mobility," Working Paper Series 1451, Research Institute of Industrial Economics, revised 29 Jun 2023.
    10. Haichao Fan & Zheng Fang & Bihong Huang & Mohan Zhou, 2022. "Prevalence of SOEs and intergenerational income persistence: Evidence from China," The World Economy, Wiley Blackwell, vol. 45(1), pages 276-291, January.

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    More about this item

    Keywords

    Trade and labor markets; Intergenerational mobility;

    JEL classification:

    • F14 - International Economics - - Trade - - - Empirical Studies of Trade
    • F16 - International Economics - - Trade - - - Trade and Labor Market Interactions
    • J62 - Labor and Demographic Economics - - Mobility, Unemployment, Vacancies, and Immigrant Workers - - - Job, Occupational and Intergenerational Mobility; Promotion

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