Trade, technology, and the labour market: impacts on wage inequality within countries

Wenxiao Wang, Christopher Findlay and Shandre Thangavelu

Asian-Pacific Economic Literature, 2021, vol. 35, issue 1, 19-35

Abstract: This paper focuses on the widening wage inequality between skilled and unskilled workers within countries and discusses whether trade and technology have contributed to this trend. The paper develops an analytical framework for wage inequality that traces the determinants and their relative roles in wage inequality in different stages of the development of trade theory, especially those considering new evidence after 2011. We find that technology plays a key role in the rise of wage inequality in most countries, while trade plays an increasingly crucial and more complex role in recent years. Skill supply institutions, such as education systems supplying skilled labour or unions participating in wage‐setting processes, suppress the rise of wage inequality in some countries. The paper further outlines the mechanisms through which trade affects wage inequality, including offshoring, firm heterogeneity, labour market frictions and global value chains. We find that trade has indirect effects on technology, which further enlarges the wage inequality among skills. The paper also discusses the policy implications of the impacts of trade and technology on wage inequality.

Date: 2021
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https://doi.org/10.1111/apel.12313

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