Arbeitspapier
Trade, education, and the shrinking middle class
We develop a new model of trade in which educational institutions drive comparative advantage and determine the distribution of human capital within and across countries. Our framework exploits a multiplicity of sectors and the continuous support of human capital choices to demonstrate that freer trade can induce crowding out of the middle occupations towards the skill acquisition extremes in one country, and simultaneous expansion of middle-income industries in another. Individual gains from trade may be non-monotonic in workers' ability, and middle ability agents can lose the most from trade liberalization. Comparing trade and education policy, we find that targeted education subsidies are more effective than tariffs as a means to preserve middle class jobs, while uniform educational subsidies have no effect.
- Language
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Englisch
- Bibliographic citation
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Series: CESifo Working Paper ; No. 4141
- Classification
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Wirtschaft
Neoclassical Models of Trade
Trade Policy; International Trade Organizations
Economic Integration
Trade and Labor Market Interactions
- Subject
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trade and education policy
skill acquisition
education
income distribution
- Event
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Geistige Schöpfung
- (who)
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Blanchard, Emily
Willmann, Gerald
- Event
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Veröffentlichung
- (who)
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Center for Economic Studies and ifo Institute (CESifo)
- (where)
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Munich
- (when)
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2013
- Handle
- Last update
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10.03.2025, 11:44 AM CET
Data provider
ZBW - Deutsche Zentralbibliothek für Wirtschaftswissenschaften - Leibniz-Informationszentrum Wirtschaft. If you have any questions about the object, please contact the data provider.
Object type
- Arbeitspapier
Associated
- Blanchard, Emily
- Willmann, Gerald
- Center for Economic Studies and ifo Institute (CESifo)
Time of origin
- 2013