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Searching for the Smoking Gun: Did Trade Hurt Unskilled Workers? *
Author(s) -
WINCHESTER NIVEN
Publication year - 2008
Publication title -
economic record
Language(s) - English
Resource type - Journals
SCImago Journal Rank - 0.365
H-Index - 42
eISSN - 1475-4932
pISSN - 0013-0249
DOI - 10.1111/j.1475-4932.2008.00459.x
Subject(s) - openness to experience , wage inequality , economics , wage , offset (computer science) , inequality , real wages , labour economics , international economics , psychology , social psychology , mathematical analysis , mathematics , computer science , programming language
We conduct an economy‐wide analysis of the association between trade and wages in New Zealand and decompose the influence of imports on relative wages by sector and region. We find that increased imports resulted in a small increase in wage inequality but this rise was offset by downward pressure on the skill premium due to increased exports. In aggregate, we observe that increased openness (rising imports and exports) decreased New Zealand wage inequality. We also find that imports from developed nations resulted in a greater increase in the New Zealand skill premium than imports from developing nations.