Articles:
U.S. Trade with Developing Countries and Wage Inequality
Jeffrey D. Sachs; Howard J. Shatz
Downloads:
- Title:
- U.S. Trade with Developing Countries and Wage Inequality
- Author(s):
-
Sachs, Jeffrey D.
Shatz, Howard J. - Date:
- 1996
- Type:
- Articles
- Department:
- Earth Institute
- Volume:
- 86
- Permanent URL:
- http://hdl.handle.net/10022/AC:P:8355
- Book/Journal Title:
- American Economic Review
- Abstract:
- Since the mid-to-late 1970's, wage inequality between low- and highly educated workers has widened markedly. The wage premium to a college education compared with a high-school education has increased by some 20 percentage points (see George J. Borjas and Valerie A. Ramey [1994] for recent estimates). Part of the explanation seems to lie with a slowdown in the growth of supply of highly educated workers in the 1980's. Another part seems to lie with a demand shift toward educated workers. Two hypotheses have been advanced to account for the alleged demand shift. The first holds that technological change has been biased in favor of high-education workers. The second holds that growing international trade with low-wage countries has shifted labor-market demand in the United States away from low-educated workers, as the United States increasingly imports goods produced by such workers from low-wage countries.
- Subject(s):
- Economics, Labor
- Item views:
- 258