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Inequality and Unemployment in a Global Economy

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Author Info
Elhanan Helpman
Oleg Itskhoki
Stephen Redding

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Abstract

This paper develops a new framework for examining the distributional consequences of trade liberalization that is consistent with increasing inequality in every country, growth in residual wage inequality, rising unemployment, and reallocation within and between industries. While the opening of trade yields welfare gains, unemployment and inequality within sectors are higher in the trade equilibrium than in the closed economy. In the open economy changes in trade openness have nonmonotonic effects on unemployment and inequality within sectors. As aggregate unemployment and inequality have within- and between-sector components, changes in sector composition following the opening of trade complicate its impact on aggregate unemployment and inequality. However, when countries are nearly symmetric, the sectoral composition effects reinforce the within-sector effects, and both aggregate inequality and aggregate unemployment rise with trade liberalization.

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Paper provided by National Bureau of Economic Research, Inc in its series NBER Working Papers with number 14478.

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Date of creation: Nov 2008
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Handle: RePEc:nbr:nberwo:14478

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Find related papers by JEL classification:
D31 - Microeconomics - - Distribution - - - Personal Income and Wealth Distribution
F12 - International Economics - - Trade - - - Models of Trade with Imperfect Competition and Scale Economies
J31 - Labor and Demographic Economics - - Wages, Compensation, and Labor Costs - - - Wage Level and Structure; Wage Differentials
J41 - Labor and Demographic Economics - - Particular Labor Markets - - - Labor Contracts
J64 - Labor and Demographic Economics - - Mobility, Unemployment, and Vacancies - - - Unemployment: Models, Duration, Incidence, and Job Search

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Full references

Cited by:
(explanations, 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.)

  1. Hartmut Egger & Peter Egger & James R. Markusen, 2009. "International Welfare and Employment Linkages Arising from Minimum Wages," NBER Working Papers 15196, National Bureau of Economic Research, Inc. [Downloadable!] (restricted)
  2. Behrens, Kristian & Robert-Nicoud, Frédéric, 2008. "Survival of the Fittest in Cities: Agglomeration, Selection, and Polarisation," CEPR Discussion Papers 7018, C.E.P.R. Discussion Papers. [Downloadable!] (restricted)
    Other versions:
  3. Matilde Bombardini & Giovanni Gallipoli & Germán Pupato, 2009. "Skill Dispersion and Trade Flows," NBER Working Papers 15097, National Bureau of Economic Research, Inc. [Downloadable!] (restricted)
    Other versions:
  4. Maria Bas, 2008. "Trade, Technology Adoption and Wage Inequalities: Theory and Evidence," CEP Discussion Papers dp0902, Centre for Economic Performance, LSE. [Downloadable!]
  5. Pravin Krishna & Mine Zeynep Senses, 2009. "International Trade and Labor Income Risk in the United States," NBER Working Papers 14992, National Bureau of Economic Research, Inc. [Downloadable!] (restricted)
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