Leiden University Student Repository

Chung, Yick (William) (2022)

Trade and Wage convergence: Do increased exports and decreased imports improve wage growth in developing countries?

Master thesis | International Relations (MA)

Does globalization increase inequality by exploiting the low wage of workers in developing countries? Or does it reduce inequality by allowing the wage to catch up? In this thesis, I study the effect of trade on wages in developing and developed countries using South Africa as a case study. Conducting a regression analysis using industry-level data in South Africa from 2013 to 2019, I find that export ratio and import penetration, as a proxy of trade openness, have no statistically significant effects on wages. Meanwhile, in a much simple supplementary test by comparing the differences in trade and wage growth in South Africa and Germany, I find some preliminary indication that the difference in wage growth between the two countries may be explained by the difference in export growth, but not in import growth.

Trade

Wage

Labour studies

Development

Inequality

Author

Chung, Yick (William)

Faculty

Faculty of Humanities

Specialisation

Global Political Economy

Supervisors

Dr. A.R. Shidiq

ECTS Credits

15

Language

en