This paper makes a theoretical argument that growth in developing countries is likely to worsen the income distribution in developed countries and lead to a protectionist response that undermines the incentives for developing country growth. The model for this purpose is the two-cone version of the HeckscherOhlin (HO) trade model, in which countries have different factor prices even with free trade, and in which they produce mostly different groups of goods. In this model, unlike the HO model with factor price equalization, growth by the poor country expands the output of its capitalintensive good, which is also the labour-intensive good of the other country. Regardless of whether factors are mobile or immobile across sectors, this reduces the real wages of factors that are either intensive or specific in the labour-intensive sector of the rich country. The paper argues that this will then lead to the rich country restricting trade. This, in turn, will lower the return to capital in the poor country and reduce the incentive for further growth.
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Volume (Year): 10 (2001) Issue (Month): 4 (December) Pages: 373-392 Download reference. The following formats are available: HTML
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References listed on IDEAS Please report citation or reference errors to , or , if you are the registered author of the cited work, log in to your RePEc Author Service profile, click on "citations" and make appropriate adjustments.:
Grossman, Gene M & Helpman, Elhanan, 1994.
"Protection for Sale,"
American Economic Review,
American Economic Association, vol. 84(4), pages 833-50, September.
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Gene M. Grossman & Elhanan Helpman, 1992.
"Protection For Sale,"
NBER Working Papers
4149, National Bureau of Economic Research, Inc.
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