American Economic Review Vol. 102 No. 5 2012

Skill Dispersion and Trade Flows

Matilde Bombardini¹; Giovanni Gallipoli²; Germán Pupato³

¹ Department of Economics, University of British Columbia and CIFAR, 997-1873 East Mall, Vancouver BC V6T 1Z1, Canada. · ² Department of Economics, University of British Columbia, 997-1873 East Mall, Vancouver, BC V6T 1Z1, Canada. · ³ Graduate School of Economics, Getulio Vargas Foundation, Praia de Botafogo 190, CEP 22250-900, Rio de Janeiro, RJ, Brazil.

Abstract

Is skill dispersion a source of comparative advantage? In this paper we use microdata from the International Adult Literacy Survey to show that the effect of skill dispersion on trade flows is quantitatively similar to that of the aggregate endowment of human capital. In particular we investigate, and find support for, the hypothesis that countries with a more dispersed skill distribution specialize in industries characterized by lower complementarity of workers' skills. The result is robust to the introduction of controls for alternative sources of comparative advantage, as well as to alternative measures of industry-level skill complementarity.

DOI

10.1257/aer.102.5.2327

Volume

102

Issue

5

Pages

2327-2348

Language

en

Sources

bibtex:phds-export.bib openalex crossref

Cite

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