Lower Tariff, Rising Skill Premium in Developing Countries:Ts it a Coincidence?

摘要

By using the North-South trade framework and the continuum model, the theoretical framework predicts that trade liberalisation (tariff reductions) and technological catch-up will raise the skill premium in developing economies through trade expansions. Trade liberalisation may raise the skill premium if the tariff reduction causes the range of traded goods in which export expansion occurs to be greater than the range of traded goods in which imports expand, holding the assumption that the goods produced will tend to be more skill intensive as exports expand.