This book deals with the impact that international trade is likely to have on the skilled-unskilled wage gap in a typical developing economy. This is the first theoretical monograph on this particular issue which has already generated substantial debate and voluminous work for the developed countries. A unique feature of this work is that it tries to explain the possibility of rising inequality across trading nations and looks at the segmented labour markets of the poor economies. It makes convincing arguments that the standard general equilibrium models, the main workhorse of trade theory, can be given a creative facelift to address a number of critical and emerging issues in the area of trade and development.

Inhalt

1: Introduction.- I Evidence and the Debate.- 2: Wages and Employment.- 2.1 Country Experiences.- 2.2 The Wage-Gap Debate: Trade or Technology?.- 2.3 Issues: What Do We Need to Address?.- II Explaining Symmetric Wage-Gap.- 3: The Standard Trade Theory:How Far Does It Go?.- 3.1 Introduction.- 3.2 Trade and Income Distribution in the HOS Model.- 3.3 Specific-Factor Model of Trade and Income Distribution.- 3.4 Conclusion.- 4: Trade Liberalization and Symmetric Wage-Gap.- 4.1 Two Cases.- 4.2 Generalized HOS Model,Trade Pattern and the Wage-Gap.- 4.3 Local Factor Abundance andAsymmetric Changes in Wages in the South.- 4.4 Rigid-Wage Specific-Factor Model.- 4.5 Conclusion.- 5: Input Trade: An Alternative Explanation.- 5.1 Introduction.- 5.2 Trade in Intermediate Products.- 5.3 Factor Mobility: How Far Does It Explain?.- 5.4 Conclusion.- III Trade, Capital Flow and Employment.- 6: Liberalization and Employmentin the Organized Sector.- 6.1 Introduction.- 6.2 The Existing Literature.- 6.3 Tariff, Foreign Investment andEmployment in a Dual Economy.- 6.4 General Equilibrium Analyses of Unemployment.- 6.5 Employment and Welfare.- 6.6 Conclusion.- IV Trade Liberalization, Wage Inequality and Employment in the South.- 7: Diverse Trade Pattern,Complementarity and Fragmentation.- 7.1 Diverse Trade Pattern of Southern Countries.- 7.2 Complementarity and the Wage-Gap.- 7.3 Liberalization and Employment.- 7.4 Fragmentation and the Wage-Gap.- 7.5 Terms of Trade, Fragmentationand Wage Inequality.- 7.6 Conclusion.- 8: Segmented Input Marketsand Non-Traded Good.- 8.2 Informal Capital Marketand Restricted Capital Mobility.- 8.3 Role of the Non-Traded Good.- 8.4 Conclusion.- 9: Trade, Skill Formation and the Wage-Gap.- 9.1 Introduction.- 9.2 Skill Differentiation, Underemploymentand Wage Inequality.- 9.3 Skill Formation and Wage Inequality.- 9.4 Conclusion.- 10: Conclusion.- List of Figures.- List of Tables.