IDEAS home Printed from https://ideas.repec.org/p/new/wpaper/2303.html
   My bibliography  Save this paper

International Trade, Global Inequality and Specialization from a Political Economy Perspective

Author

Listed:
  • Clara Brenck

    (Department of Economics, New School for Social Research, USA)

  • Duncan Foley

    (Department of Economics, New School for Social Research, USA)

Abstract

In this paper we discuss possible explanations for persistent global inequalities from a political economy perspective. Different from what Smith and Marx assume in the long period method – that both capital and labor are fully mobile – we assume that labor is not mobile across regions. The lack of labor mobility is an important abstract problem to theorize about capitalist development in a globalized context. Including such assumption in the dual problem of consumption-growth and wage-profit rate, the model sheds light on some channels in which uneven development and specialization may occur: different wages and equalized profit rates can be achieved by different labor qualities or different access to technologies. If labor qualities are different, wage differences would represent only the difference in labor productivity and effective wages would be equalized, without any specialization. If technologies are different, on the other hand, specialization may occur, and trade is thus established. The lack of technological mobility can occur due to increasing returns to scale, product differentiation and different socioeconomic characteristics of countries.

Suggested Citation

  • Clara Brenck & Duncan Foley, 2023. "International Trade, Global Inequality and Specialization from a Political Economy Perspective," Working Papers 2303, New School for Social Research, Department of Economics.
    • Handle: RePEc:new:wpaper:2303
    as

    Download full text from publisher

    File URL: http://www.economicpolicyresearch.org/econ/2023/NSSR_WP_032023.pdf
    File Function: First version, 2023
    Download Restriction: no
    ---><---

    References listed on IDEAS

    as
    1. A. P. Thirlwall, 2015. "Essays on Keynesian and Kaldorian Economics," Palgrave Studies in the History of Economic Thought, Palgrave Macmillan, number 978-1-137-40948-5.
    2. Harris, Richard I D & Lau, Eunice, 1998. "Verdoorn's Law and Increasing Returns to Scale in the UK Regions, 1968-91: Some New Estimates Based on the Cointegration Approach," Oxford Economic Papers, Oxford University Press, vol. 50(2), pages 201-219, April.
    3. Ellis Scharfenaker & Gregor Semieniuk, 2017. "A Statistical Equilibrium Approach to the Distribution of Profit Rates," Metroeconomica, Wiley Blackwell, vol. 68(3), pages 465-499, July.
    4. John S. L. McCombie & John R. de Ridder, 1983. "Increasing Returns, Productivity, and Output Growth: The Case of the United States," Journal of Post Keynesian Economics, Taylor & Francis Journals, vol. 5(3), pages 373-387, March.
    Full references (including those not matched with items on IDEAS)

    Most related items

    These are the items that most often cite the same works as this one and are cited by the same works as this one.
    1. Sergio Destefanis, 2002. "The Verdoorn Law: Some Evidence from Non-Parametric Frontier Analysis," Palgrave Macmillan Books, in: John McCombie & Maurizio Pugno & Bruno Soro (ed.), Productivity Growth and Economic Performance, chapter 6, pages 136-164, Palgrave Macmillan.
    2. Oliveira, Francisco H.P. & Jayme, Frederico Jr. & Lemos, Mauro B., 2006. "Increasing returns to scale and international diffusion of technology: An empirical study for Brazil (1976-2000)," World Development, Elsevier, vol. 34(1), pages 75-88, January.
    3. Gilberto Libânio & Sueli Moro, 2011. "Manufacturing Industryand Economic Growth in Latin America," Anais do XXXVII Encontro Nacional de Economia [Proceedings of the 37th Brazilian Economics Meeting] 86, ANPEC - Associação Nacional dos Centros de Pós-Graduação em Economia [Brazilian Association of Graduate Programs in Economics].
    4. Ellis Scharfenaker, Markus P.A. Schneider, 2019. "Labor Market Segmentation and the Distribution of Income: New Evidence from Internal Census Bureau Data," Working Paper Series, Department of Economics, University of Utah 2019_08, University of Utah, Department of Economics.
    5. Zeng, Jinli & Zhang, Jie, 2022. "Education policies and development with threshold human capital externalities," Economic Modelling, Elsevier, vol. 108(C).
    6. Scharfenaker, Ellis, 2020. "Implications of quantal response statistical equilibrium," Journal of Economic Dynamics and Control, Elsevier, vol. 119(C).
    7. Wilson Quijano & Diego Alejandro Guevara-Castañeda, 2021. "Desindustrialización: evidencias desde una mirada kaldoriana para Colombia (2005-2017)," Ensayos de Economía 19342, Universidad Nacional de Colombia Sede Medellín.
    8. Marwil J. Dávila-Fernández, 2018. "Alternative Approaches to Technological Change when Growth is BoPC," Department of Economics University of Siena 795, Department of Economics, University of Siena.
    9. Ryohei Nakamura, 2008. "Agglomeration Effects on Regional Economic Disparities: A Comparison between the UK and Japan," Urban Studies, Urban Studies Journal Limited, vol. 45(9), pages 1947-1971, August.
    10. Ellis Scharfenaker, 2022. "Statistical Equilibrium Methods In Analytical Political Economy," Journal of Economic Surveys, Wiley Blackwell, vol. 36(2), pages 276-309, April.
    11. Concetta Castiglione, 2011. "Verdoorn-Kaldor’s Law: an empirical analysis with time series data in the United States," Advances in Management and Applied Economics, SCIENPRESS Ltd, vol. 1(3), pages 1-8.
    12. Jonathan F. Cogliano, 2017. "Surplus Value Production and Realization in Marxian Theory - Applications to the U.S., 1987-2015," Working Paper Series 2017-01, Dickinson College, Department of Economics.
    13. Mundt, Philipp & Alfarano, Simone & Milaković, Mishael, 2020. "Exploiting ergodicity in forecasts of corporate profitability," Journal of Economic Dynamics and Control, Elsevier, vol. 111(C).
    14. Tregenna, Fiona, 2011. "Manufacturing Productivity, Deindustrialization, and Reindustrialization," WIDER Working Paper Series 057, World Institute for Development Economic Research (UNU-WIDER).
    15. Leila Davis & Joao Paulo A. de Souza, 2022. "Churning and profitability in the U.S. corporate sector," Metroeconomica, Wiley Blackwell, vol. 73(3), pages 924-957, July.
    16. Luis Daniel Torres-Gonzalez & Jacobo Ferrer-Hernandez & Adrian Martınez, 2022. "On the Long-Run Neutrality of Profits-Wages Ratios in the Determination of International Relative Prices Under Absolute Advantages," Working Papers 2208, New School for Social Research, Department of Economics.
    17. Di Bucchianico, Stefano, 2019. "The Impact of Financialization on the Rate of Profit: A Discussion," Centro Sraffa Working Papers CSWP36, Centro di Ricerche e Documentazione "Piero Sraffa".
    18. Alexandre Gomes, 2020. "Regional economic growth in China from a Kaldorian perspective: A comparative study of Nanjing and Suzhou," PSL Quarterly Review, Economia civile, vol. 73(295), pages 283-312.
    19. Fiona Tregenna, 2011. "Manufacturing Productivity, Deindustrialization, and Reindustrialization," WIDER Working Paper Series wp-2011-057, World Institute for Development Economic Research (UNU-WIDER).
    20. Gregor Semieniuk & Victor M. Yakovenko, 2020. "Historical Evolution of Global Inequality in Carbon Emissions and Footprints versus Redistributive Scenarios," Papers 2004.00111, arXiv.org.

    More about this item

    Keywords

    Long period method; labor mobility; global inequality; technological differences; specialization; trade;
    All these keywords.

    JEL classification:

    • D30 - Microeconomics - - Distribution - - - General
    • E11 - Macroeconomics and Monetary Economics - - General Aggregative Models - - - Marxian; Sraffian; Kaleckian
    • F12 - International Economics - - Trade - - - Models of Trade with Imperfect Competition and Scale Economies; Fragmentation

    NEP fields

    This paper has been announced in the following NEP Reports:

    Statistics

    Access and download statistics

    Corrections

    All material on this site has been provided by the respective publishers and authors. You can help correct errors and omissions. When requesting a correction, please mention this item's handle: RePEc:new:wpaper:2303. See general information about how to correct material in RePEc.

    If you have authored this item and are not yet registered with RePEc, we encourage you to do it here. This allows to link your profile to this item. It also allows you to accept potential citations to this item that we are uncertain about.

    If CitEc recognized a bibliographic reference but did not link an item in RePEc to it, you can help with this form .

    If you know of missing items citing this one, you can help us creating those links by adding the relevant references in the same way as above, for each refering item. If you are a registered author of this item, you may also want to check the "citations" tab in your RePEc Author Service profile, as there may be some citations waiting for confirmation.

    For technical questions regarding this item, or to correct its authors, title, abstract, bibliographic or download information, contact: Mark Setterfield (email available below). General contact details of provider: https://edirc.repec.org/data/denewus.html .

    Please note that corrections may take a couple of weeks to filter through the various RePEc services.

    IDEAS is a RePEc service. RePEc uses bibliographic data supplied by the respective publishers.