[go: up one dir, main page]
IDEAS home Printed from https://ideas.repec.org/p/snb/snbwpa/2010-18.html
   My bibliography  Save this paper

Are Imports from Rich Nations Deskilling Emerging Economies? - Human Capital and the Dynamic Effects of Trade

Author

Listed:
  • Raphael A. Auer
Abstract
This paper starts by documenting that during the last decades, the human capital embodied in imports from skill abundant nations has noticeably reduced skill accumulation in the less developed world. To identify the causal relation between these variables, the analysis utilizes over-time variation in the supply of skilled labor and the extent to which this variation affects the skill content of trade given the bilateral distance between im- and exporter. In a panel estimation covering 41 non-OCED members, a one standard deviation higher geographic pressure to import human capital is associated with a 12% reduction in the national average length of schooling. The paper next develops a model to analyze the income and welfare consequences of such trade-induced human capital disaccumulation. The model is based on heterogeneous workers who make educational decisions in the presence of complete markets. When heterogeneous workers invest in schooling, high type agents earn a surplus from their investment. Trade shifts this surplus to rich countries that can use skills more efficiently. Consequently, the dynamic effects of liberalization tend to occur to initially rich countries, thus leading to divergence.

Suggested Citation

  • Raphael A. Auer, 2010. "Are Imports from Rich Nations Deskilling Emerging Economies? - Human Capital and the Dynamic Effects of Trade," Working Papers 2010-18, Swiss National Bank.
    • Handle: RePEc:snb:snbwpa:2010-18
    as

    Download full text from publisher

    File URL: https://www.snb.ch/en/publications/research/working-papers/2010/working_paper_2010_18
    Download Restriction: no
    ---><---

    References listed on IDEAS

    as
    1. Auer, Raphael A. & Degen, Kathrin & Fischer, Andreas M., 2013. "Low-wage import competition, inflationary pressure, and industry dynamics in Europe," European Economic Review, Elsevier, vol. 59(C), pages 141-166.
    2. Paul A. Samuelson, 2004. "Where Ricardo and Mill Rebut and Confirm Arguments of Mainstream Economists Supporting Globalization," Journal of Economic Perspectives, American Economic Association, vol. 18(3), pages 135-146, Summer.
    3. Elhanan Helpman & Oleg Itskhoki & Stephen Redding, 2010. "Unequal Effects of Trade on Workers with Different Abilities," Journal of the European Economic Association, MIT Press, vol. 8(2-3), pages 421-433, 04-05.
    4. Auer, Raphael & Fischer, Andreas M., 2010. "The effect of low-wage import competition on U.S. inflationary pressure," Journal of Monetary Economics, Elsevier, vol. 57(4), pages 491-503, May.
    5. Rafael La Porta & Florencio Lopez-de-Silanes & Andrei Shleifer & Robert W. Vishny, 1998. "Law and Finance," Journal of Political Economy, University of Chicago Press, vol. 106(6), pages 1113-1155, December.
    6. Elhanan Helpman & Marc Melitz & Yona Rubinstein, 2008. "Estimating Trade Flows: Trading Partners and Trading Volumes," The Quarterly Journal of Economics, President and Fellows of Harvard College, vol. 123(2), pages 441-487.
    7. Dollar, David & Kraay, Aart, 2003. "Institutions, trade, and growth," Journal of Monetary Economics, Elsevier, vol. 50(1), pages 133-162, January.
    8. Robert C. Feenstra & Robert E. Lipsey & Harry P. Bowen, 1997. "World Trade Flows, 1970-1992, with Production and Tariff Data," NBER Working Papers 5910, National Bureau of Economic Research, Inc.
    9. Dani Rodrik & Arvind Subramanian & Francesco Trebbi, 2004. "Institutions Rule: The Primacy of Institutions Over Geography and Integration in Economic Development," Journal of Economic Growth, Springer, vol. 9(2), pages 131-165, June.
    10. Auer, Raphael & Fischer, Andreas M., 2010. "The effect of low-wage import competition on U.S. inflationary pressure," Journal of Monetary Economics, Elsevier, vol. 57(4), pages 491-503, May.
    11. Elhanan Helpman & Oleg Itskhoki & Stephen Redding, 2010. "Inequality and Unemployment in a Global Economy," Econometrica, Econometric Society, vol. 78(4), pages 1239-1283, July.
    12. Elhanan Helpman & Oleg Itskhoki, 2010. "Labour Market Rigidities, Trade and Unemployment," The Review of Economic Studies, Review of Economic Studies Ltd, vol. 77(3), pages 1100-1137.
    13. J. M. C. Santos Silva & Silvana Tenreyro, 2006. "The Log of Gravity," The Review of Economics and Statistics, MIT Press, vol. 88(4), pages 641-658, November.
    14. Yong-Seok Choi & Pravin Krishna, 2004. "The Factor Content of Bilateral Trade: An Empirical Test," Journal of Political Economy, University of Chicago Press, vol. 112(4), pages 887-914, August.
    15. Debeare, Peter, 2003. "Relative Factor Abundance and Trade," Journal of Political Economy, University of Chicago Press, vol. 111(3), pages 589-610, June.
    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. Shahid Yusuf & Kaoru Nabeshima, 2012. "Some Small Countries Do It Better : Rapid Growth and Its Causes in Singapore, Finland, and Ireland," World Bank Publications - Books, The World Bank Group, number 2243.

    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. Andrew B. Bernard & J. Bradford Jensen & Stephen J. Redding & Peter K. Schott, 2012. "The Empirics of Firm Heterogeneity and International Trade," Annual Review of Economics, Annual Reviews, vol. 4(1), pages 283-313, July.
    2. Andreas Bergh & Christian Bjørnskov, 2021. "Does economic freedom boost growth for everyone?," Kyklos, Wiley Blackwell, vol. 74(2), pages 170-186, May.
    3. Heid, Benedikt & Larch, Mario, 2016. "Gravity with unemployment," Journal of International Economics, Elsevier, vol. 101(C), pages 70-85.
    4. Heid, Benedikt & Larch, Mario, 2012. "Migration, trade and unemployment," Economics - The Open-Access, Open-Assessment E-Journal (2007-2020), Kiel Institute for the World Economy (IfW Kiel), vol. 6, pages 1-40.
    5. Bhupatiraju S. & Verspagen B., 2013. "Economic development, growth, institutions and geography," MERIT Working Papers 2013-056, United Nations University - Maastricht Economic and Social Research Institute on Innovation and Technology (MERIT).
    6. Auer, Raphael A. & Mehrotra, Aaron, 2014. "Trade linkages and the globalisation of inflation in Asia and the Pacific," Journal of International Money and Finance, Elsevier, vol. 49(PA), pages 129-151.
    7. T. Gries & R. Grundmann & I. Palnau & M. Redlin, 2017. "Innovations, growth and participation in advanced economies - a review of major concepts and findings," International Economics and Economic Policy, Springer, vol. 14(2), pages 293-351, April.
    8. Gabriel J. Felbermayr & Mario Larch & Wolfgang Lechthaler, 2013. "Unemployment in an Interdependent World," American Economic Journal: Economic Policy, American Economic Association, vol. 5(1), pages 262-301, February.
    9. Andrei A. Levchenko, 2013. "International Trade and Institutional Change," The Journal of Law, Economics, and Organization, Oxford University Press, vol. 29(5), pages 1145-1181, October.
    10. Chevassus-Lozza, Emmanuelle & Gaigné, Carl & Le Mener, Léo, 2013. "Does input trade liberalization boost downstream firms' exports? Theory and firm-level evidence," Journal of International Economics, Elsevier, vol. 90(2), pages 391-402.
    11. John Lewis & Jumana Saleheen, 2018. "Tailwinds from the East: how has the rising share of imports from emerging markets affected import prices?," Cambridge Journal of Economics, Cambridge Political Economy Society, vol. 42(5), pages 1343-1365.
    12. Wessel, Jan, 2019. "Evaluating the transport-mode-specific trade effects of different transport infrastructure types," Transport Policy, Elsevier, vol. 78(C), pages 42-57.
    13. Do, Quy-Toan & Levchenko, Andrei A., 2007. "Comparative advantage, demand for external finance, and financial development," Journal of Financial Economics, Elsevier, vol. 86(3), pages 796-834, December.
    14. Naohisa Hirakata & Yuto Iwasaki & Masahiro Kawai, 2014. "Emerging Economies’ Supply Shocks and Japan’s Price Deflation : International Transmissions in a Three-Country DSGE Model," Macroeconomics Working Papers 23970, East Asian Bureau of Economic Research.
    15. Capolupo, Rosa, 2009. "The New Growth Theories and Their Empirics after Twenty Years," Economics - The Open-Access, Open-Assessment E-Journal (2007-2020), Kiel Institute for the World Economy (IfW Kiel), vol. 3, pages 1-72.
    16. Raphael A. Auer, 2015. "Exchange Rate Pass‐Through, Domestic Competition, and Inflation: Evidence from the 2005–08 Revaluation of the Renminbi," Journal of Money, Credit and Banking, Blackwell Publishing, vol. 47(8), pages 1617-1650, December.
    17. Carsten A Holz & Aaron Mehrotra, 2013. "Wage and price dynamics in a large emerging economy: The case of China," BIS Working Papers 409, Bank for International Settlements.
    18. Raphael Auer & Aaron Mehrotra, 2014. "Real globalisation and price spillovers in Asia and the Pacific," BIS Papers chapters, in: Bank for International Settlements (ed.), Globalisation, inflation and monetary policy in Asia and the Pacific, volume 77, pages 81-89, Bank for International Settlements.
    19. Head, Keith & Mayer, Thierry & Ries, John, 2009. "How remote is the offshoring threat?," European Economic Review, Elsevier, vol. 53(4), pages 429-444, May.
    20. Francois, Joseph & Manchin, Miriam, 2013. "Institutions, Infrastructure, and Trade," World Development, Elsevier, vol. 46(C), pages 165-175.

    More about this item

    Keywords

    Factor Content of Trade; Employment; Human Capital; Economic Growth;
    All these keywords.

    JEL classification:

    • F11 - International Economics - - Trade - - - Neoclassical Models of Trade
    • F14 - International Economics - - Trade - - - Empirical Studies of Trade
    • F16 - International Economics - - Trade - - - Trade and Labor Market Interactions

    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:snb:snbwpa:2010-18. 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: Enzo Rossi (email available below). General contact details of provider: https://edirc.repec.org/data/snbgvch.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.