International trade accounts for only a small share of growing
income inequality and labor-market displacement in the United
States. Lawrence deconstructs the gap in real blue-collar wages and
labor productivity growth between 1981 and 2006 and estimates how
much higher these wages might have been had income growth been
distributed proportionately and how much of the gap is due to
measurement and technical factors about which little can be
done.While increased trade with developing countries may have
played some part in causing greater inequality in the 1980s,
surprisingly, over the past decade the impact of such trade on
inequality has been relatively small. Many imports are no longer
produced in the United States, and US goods and services that do
compete with imports are not particularly intensive in unskilled
labor. Rising income inequality and slow real wage growth since
2000 reflect strong profit growth, much of which may be cyclical,
and dramatic income gains for the top 1 percent of wage earners, a
development that is more closely related to asset-market
performance and technological and institutional innovations rather
than conventional trade in goods and services. The minor role of
trade, therefore, suggests that any policy that focuses narrowly on
trade to deal with wage inequality and job loss is likely to be
ineffective. Instead, policymakers should (a) use the tax system to
improve income distribution and (b) implement adjustment policies
to deal more generally with worker and community dislocation.
General
Is the information for this product incomplete, wrong or inappropriate?
Let us know about it.
Does this product have an incorrect or missing image?
Send us a new image.
Is this product missing categories?
Add more categories.
Review This Product
No reviews yet - be the first to create one!
Welcome to Loot.co.za!
Sign in / Register |Wishlists & Gift Vouchers |Help | Advanced search
