Hur påverkar handel inkomstklyftor och fattigdom inom länder?

Sammanfattning: In our thesis we seek the answer to if trade openness has an effect on income gaps within countries. Since different trade flows can have different effects based on who the trading partners are, we disaggregate the trade flows based on these criteria. Using a dynamic two-ways fixed-effects model (LSDV) based on unbalanced panel data we follow 160 countries (of which 155 contribute to the variance since they have more than one observation) over the time-period 1970-2019 and a gini-coefficient that measures disponible household income. Furthermore, we also include a measurement of absolute poverty, measured as the share of the population living on less than 3,2 USD a day, where we have data for 130 countries (of which 111 with more than one observation, and the earliest observation is 1974). We divide our sample in low-, middle- and high-income countries and control for the effects on the gini-coefficient and absolute poverty stemming from both exports as well as imports. Our results indicate that when low-income countries exports to other low-income countries it decreases the income gaps within the exporting country. Low-income countries trade flows with middle- and high-income countries however seem to have a positive relationship with their income gaps, which we argue provides support for skill-enhancing trade (SET) and skill-biased technological change (SBTC). For high- and middle-income countries we don’t find any support for a relationship between income gaps and trade openness. Regarding absolute poverty we mostly see significant results for high-income countries, where export to other high-income countries decreases poverty while import from other high-income countries increases poverty.