Please use this identifier to cite or link to this item: https://hdl.handle.net/10419/57335 
Authors: 
Year of Publication: 
2010
Series/Report no.: 
IAI Discussion Papers No. 209
Publisher: 
Georg-August-Universität Göttingen, Ibero-America Institute for Economic Research (IAI), Göttingen
Abstract: 
This paper makes the following contributions to the literature on the impact of trade on income. First, we use heterogeneous panel cointegration techniques that are robust to omitted variables and endogenous regressors to estimate the effect of trade on income for 75 developed and developing countries, both for the sample, as a whole, and for each individual country. Second, we use a general-to-specific variable-selection approach to identify important determinants of the effect of trade on income. Our main findings are: (i) A one-percent increase in the trade share of GDP results, on average, in a statistically significant increase in income per worker of about 0.18 percent. This result is in contrast to previous studies, which tend to produce either unreasonably large or statistically insignificant estimates of the impact of trade on income. (ii) There are large cross-country differences in the income effect of trade, in particular, between developed and developing countries. For developed countries the income effect of trade is positive, whereas trade has, on average, a negative impact on income in developing countries. (iii) The cross-country heterogeneity in the impact of trade on income can be explained mainly by cross-country differences in primary export dependence, labor market regulation, and property rights protection. The level of property rights protection is positively related, while the levels of primary export dependence and labor market regulation are negatively related to the income effect of trade.
Subjects: 
Trade
Income
Cross-country heterogeneity
Panel cointegration
General-to-specific approach
JEL: 
F43
F14
C23
C52
Document Type: 
Working Paper

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