克鲁格曼国际经济学第五章.ppt

North-South Trade and Income Inequality (cont.) Even if the model were exactly correct, trade is a small fraction of the U.S. economy, so its effects on U.S. prices and wages prices should be small. The majority view of trade economists is that the villain is not trade but rather new production technologies that put a greater emphasis on worker skills (such as the widespread introduction of computers and other advanced technologies in the workplace). Skill-Biased Technological Change and Income Inequality Even though skilled labor becomes relatively more expensive, in panel (b) producers in both sectors respond to the skill-biased technological change by increasing their employment of skilled workers relative to unskilled workers. The trade explanation in panel (a) predicts an opposite response for employment in both sectors. A widespread increase in the skilled labor ratios for most sectors in the U.S. economy points to the skill-biased technological explanation. Skill-Biased Technological Change and Income Inequality (cont.) Trade likely has been an indirect contributor to increases in wage inequality, by accelerating the process of technological change. Firms that begin to export may upgrade to more skill-intensive production technologies. Trade liberalization can then generate widespread technological change by inducing a large proportion of firms to make such technology-upgrade choices. Breaking up the production process across countries can increase the relative demand for skilled workers in developed countries similar to skill-biased technological change. Fig. 5-10: Increased Wage Inequality: Trade or Skill-Biased Technological Change? Fig. 5-11: Evolution of U.S. Non-Production–Production Employment Ratios in Four Groups of Sectors Factor Price Equalization Unlike the Ricardian model, the Heckscher-Ohlin model predicts that factor prices will be equalized among countries that trade. Free trade equalizes relative output prices. Due to the connection betwe