Chapter 1: Introduction.- Chapter 2: An Agricultural Household Model with Tariffs.- Chapter 3: Data and Estimation.- Chapter 4: Income Gains and Inequality Costs.- Chapter 5: The Trade-Off.- Chapter 6: Alternative Models.- Chapter 7: HIT: Household Impacts of Trade.- Chapter 8: Conclusions.- Bibliography.
Erhan Artuc is a Senior Economist at the World Bank's Development Research Group. His most recent research focuses on international trade and migration policies and their effects on labor markets and development. He holds a Ph.D. in economics from the University of Virginia. His work is published in leading academic and policy journals such as Journal of International Economics, Economic Journal and American Economic Review.
Guido Porto is Professor of Economics at the University of La Plata (Argentina). His research focuses on the econometric estimation of the impacts of trade policies in developing countries, including impacts on poverty, household welfare, wages, and the distribution of income as well as on firm behavior. His latest work investigates how economic agents (households and firms) adjust to trade reform. He holds a Ph.D in Economics from Princeton University. His work has been published in leading academic journals such as American Economic Review, Review of Economics and Statistics, and Economic Journal, among others.
Bob Rijkers is a Senior Economist in the Trade and International Integration Unit of the Development Research Group. His research interests include His research interests include state capture, corruption, and the distributional impacts of trade. He holds a D.Phil. in Economics from Oxford University. His research has been published in leading academic journals such as the Journal of Political Economy, Review of Economics and Statistics, and Economic Journal, among others.
This volume examines the relationship between trade liberalization policies and income inequality in developing countries. Using survey data for 54 developing countries, the book explores the potential trade-off between the gains from trade and the distribution of those gains and provides a quantification of the inequality-adjusted welfare gains from trade.
The book begins with an introduction to the model and its methodology. Chapter 2 sets up the model and derives the formulas for the welfare effects of trade policy. Chapter 3 uses the tariff data and the survey data to estimate those welfare effects in 54 countries. Chapter 4 discusses the gains from trade and their distribution. Chapter 5 evaluates and quantifies the trade-off between income gains and inequality costs of trade. Chapter 6 presents robustness tests and results from alternative models of the impacts of trade. The last chapter reviews the Household Impacts of Trade database and dashboard, which provides data for replication and a platform that allows researchers to simulate agricultural tariff policy shocks.
Providing a comprehensive empirical analysis of the effects of trade policy on inequality in developing countries, this volume will be of interest to researchers and students of economic inequality, development, and international trade as well as policymakers interested in the inequality and poverty consequences of trade policy.