IDEAS home Printed from https://ideas.repec.org/p/ecj/ac2003/178.html
   My bibliography  Save this paper

Trade and Wages: A Deeper Investigation

Author

Listed:
  • Ruffin, Roy J

    (University of Houston)

  • Ronald W Jones

Abstract

A new presentation of the specific factors model shows how labor fares under international trade by considering how the price elasticity of the nominal wage rate responds to the terms of trade as well as factor endowments. Gains to labor are decomposed into measurable terms of trade effects and production bias effects. If trade is caused by differences in technology, trade can harm the interests of labor when the elasticities of substitution are sufficiently small. If trade is caused by differences in labor endowments, trade raises real wages in the labor abundant country, even if exports are capital intensive.

Suggested Citation

  • Ruffin, Roy J & Ronald W Jones, 2003. "Trade and Wages: A Deeper Investigation," Royal Economic Society Annual Conference 2003 178, Royal Economic Society.
  • Handle: RePEc:ecj:ac2003:178
    as

    Download full text from publisher

    File URL: http://repec.org/res2003/Ruffin.pdf
    File Function: full text
    Download Restriction: no
    ---><---

    Other versions of this item:

    References listed on IDEAS

    as
    1. Edward J. Balistreri & Christine A. McDaniel & Eina Vivian Wong, 2003. "An Estimation of U.S. Industry-Level Capital-Labor Substitution," Computational Economics 0303001, University Library of Munich, Germany.
    Full references (including those not matched with items on IDEAS)

    Citations

    Citations are extracted by the CitEc Project, subscribe to its RSS feed for this item.
    as


    Cited by:

    1. Robert S. Chirinko & Debdulal Mallick, 2014. "The Substitution Elasticity, Factor Shares, Long-Run Growth, and the Low-Frequency Panel Model," CESifo Working Paper Series 4895, CESifo.
    2. Akay, Gokhan H., 2012. "Trade and factor returns: Empirical evidence from U.S. economy," International Review of Economics & Finance, Elsevier, vol. 21(1), pages 77-86.
    3. Michael Knoblach & Fabian Stöckl, 2020. "What Determines The Elasticity Of Substitution Between Capital And Labor? A Literature Review," Journal of Economic Surveys, Wiley Blackwell, vol. 34(4), pages 847-875, September.
    4. Gokhan Akay & Can Dogan, 2013. "The effect of labor supply changes on output: empirical evidence from US industries," Journal of Productivity Analysis, Springer, vol. 39(2), pages 123-130, April.
    5. Jones, Ronald W., 2012. "Real wages and non-traded goods," International Review of Economics & Finance, Elsevier, vol. 21(1), pages 177-185.
    6. Dogan, Can & Akay, Gokhan H., 2019. "The role of labor endowments on industry output in the short run: Evidence from U.S industries," International Review of Economics & Finance, Elsevier, vol. 60(C), pages 281-291.
    7. Alexander Hijzen, 2004. "Trade in Intermediates and the Rise in Wage Inequality in the UK: A GNP Function Approach," Econometric Society 2004 North American Summer Meetings 224, Econometric Society.
    8. Barbara Dluhosch & Stefanie Krause, 2013. "Diversity and the disinterest in trade liberalization: on the prospects of self-enforcing cooperation," Journal of Evolutionary Economics, Springer, vol. 23(2), pages 455-475, April.
    9. Samuele Ialenti & Guido Pialli, 2024. "The increase in the elasticity of substitution between capital and labour: a repeated cross-country investigation," Economics of Innovation and New Technology, Taylor & Francis Journals, vol. 33(3), pages 380-400, April.
    10. Eden S. H. Yu & Chi‐Chur Chao, 2021. "Appropriation, firm dynamics, and wage inequality," International Journal of Economic Theory, The International Society for Economic Theory, vol. 17(1), pages 118-129, March.

    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. Michal Antoszewski, 2017. "Panel estimation of sectoral substitution elasticities for CES production functions," EcoMod2017 10160, EcoMod.
    2. M. Chepeliev, 2015. "Econometric estimation of capital-labor substitution elasticities for Ukrainian CGE model," Economy and Forecasting, Valeriy Heyets, issue 2, pages 33-46.
    3. Sauquet, Alexandre & Lecocq, Franck & Delacote, Philippe & Caurla, Sylvain & Barkaoui, Ahmed & Garcia, Serge, 2011. "Estimating Armington elasticities for sawnwood and application to the French Forest Sector Model," Resource and Energy Economics, Elsevier, vol. 33(4), pages 771-781.
    4. Cristina Guillamón & Enrique Moral-Benito & Sergio Puente, 2017. "High growth firms in employment and productivity: dynamic interactions and the role of financial constraints?," Working Papers 1718, Banco de España.
    5. Fachin, Stefano & Gavosto, Andrea, 2007. "The decline in Italian productivity: a study in estimation of long-Run trends in Total Factor Productivity with panel cointegration methods," MPRA Paper 3112, University Library of Munich, Germany.
    6. Yalew, Amsalu W. & Hirte, Georg & Lotze-Campen, Hermann & Tscharaktschiew, Stefan, 2017. "General equilibrium effects of public adaptation in agriculture in LDCs: Evidence from Ethiopia," CEPIE Working Papers 11/17, Technische Universität Dresden, Center of Public and International Economics (CEPIE).
    7. Joshua Elliott & Meredith Franklin & Ian Foster & Todd Munson & Margaret Loudermilk, 2012. "Propagation of Data Error and Parametric Sensitivity in Computable General Equilibrium Models," Computational Economics, Springer;Society for Computational Economics, vol. 39(3), pages 219-241, March.
    8. Gokhan Akay & Can Dogan, 2013. "The effect of labor supply changes on output: empirical evidence from US industries," Journal of Productivity Analysis, Springer, vol. 39(2), pages 123-130, April.
    9. Wang, Ping & Kinnucan, Henry W. & Duffy, Patricia A., 2017. "Effects of China's Rising Labor Costs on the World Cotton Market," 2017 Annual Meeting, July 30-August 1, Chicago, Illinois 258431, Agricultural and Applied Economics Association.
    10. Baldi, Guido & Pons, Martina, 2019. "The Evolution of Factor Shares: Evidence from Switzerland," MPRA Paper 92408, University Library of Munich, Germany.
    11. Koesler, Simon & Schymura, Michael, 2012. "Substitution elasticities in a CES production framework: An empirical analysis on the basis of non-linear least squares estimations," ZEW Discussion Papers 12-007, ZEW - Leibniz Centre for European Economic Research.
    12. Simon Koesler & Michael Schymura, 2015. "Substitution Elasticities In A Constant Elasticity Of Substitution Framework - Empirical Estimates Using Nonlinear Least Squares," Economic Systems Research, Taylor & Francis Journals, vol. 27(1), pages 101-121, March.
    13. Knoblach, Michael & Rößler, Martin & Zwerschke, Patrick, 2016. "The Elasticity of Factor Substitution Between Capital and Labor in the U.S. Economy: A Meta-Regression Analysis," CEPIE Working Papers 03/16, Technische Universität Dresden, Center of Public and International Economics (CEPIE).
    14. Michał Konopczyński, 2014. "How Taxes and Spending on Education Influence Economic Growth in Poland," Contemporary Economics, University of Economics and Human Sciences in Warsaw., vol. 8(3), September.
    15. Simon Koesler & Michael Schymura, 2012. "Substitution Elasticities for CGE Models," EcoMod2012 4010, EcoMod.
    16. Amilcar A. Menichini, 2017. "On the value and determinants of the interest tax shields," Review of Quantitative Finance and Accounting, Springer, vol. 48(3), pages 725-748, April.
    17. Hugo Toledo, 2007. "Coca Substitution and Free Trade in Bolivia: The Pending Crisis," Review of Development Economics, Wiley Blackwell, vol. 11(1), pages 63-77, February.
    18. Taheripour, Farzad & Khanna, Madhu & Nelson, Charles, 2005. "Welfare Impacts of Alternative Public Policies for Environmental Protection in Agriculture in an Open Economy: A General Equilibrium Framework," 2005 Annual meeting, July 24-27, Providence, RI 19317, American Agricultural Economics Association (New Name 2008: Agricultural and Applied Economics Association).
    19. Hugo Toledo, 2005. "Adjustment to trade reform in Ecuador," Journal of Economic Policy Reform, Taylor & Francis Journals, vol. 8(1), pages 41-53.
    20. Julia Hall & Grant Scobie, 2005. "Capital Shallowness: A Problem for New Zealand?," Treasury Working Paper Series 05/05, New Zealand Treasury.

    More about this item

    Keywords

    trade; real wages; beta function; specific factors;
    All these keywords.

    JEL classification:

    • F1 - International Economics - - Trade

    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:ecj:ac2003:178. 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: Christopher F. Baum (email available below). General contact details of provider: https://edirc.repec.org/data/resssea.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.