This paper studies the interplay between wage gap and government spending in a small open economy facing a liberalization of commodities trade with the external world. We consider a developing economy with two sectors: an export sector, which uses capital and unskilled labour, and an import-competing sector, which uses capital and skilled labour. In this speci…c factor model, the return to capital is the link between the two sectors. We show that there exists a direct relation between trade liberalization, which decreases the skilled-unskilled wage gap, and the level of government expenditure. However, either an unbalanced distribution of political bargaining power, or tariff revenue co-…nancing of public spending may break this direct relation.

Trade tariff, wage gap and public spending

GIURANNO, MICHELE GIUSEPPE;NOCCO, ANTONELLA
2015-01-01

Abstract

This paper studies the interplay between wage gap and government spending in a small open economy facing a liberalization of commodities trade with the external world. We consider a developing economy with two sectors: an export sector, which uses capital and unskilled labour, and an import-competing sector, which uses capital and skilled labour. In this speci…c factor model, the return to capital is the link between the two sectors. We show that there exists a direct relation between trade liberalization, which decreases the skilled-unskilled wage gap, and the level of government expenditure. However, either an unbalanced distribution of political bargaining power, or tariff revenue co-…nancing of public spending may break this direct relation.
2015
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Utilizza questo identificativo per citare o creare un link a questo documento: https://hdl.handle.net/11587/407662
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