Trade, Jobs and Wages

Hian Teck Hoon, Professor of Economics, School of Economics, Singapore Management University, Singapore

'Although reams of paper have been dedicated to East Asia's rapid productivity growth in recent decades, no one had explored at all deeply the other dimension of the Asian miracle - the extraordinarily low unemployment rates achieved. In this masterful book Hian Teck Hoon explains that it is structural unemployment that is so low there, not deficient demand. Then, skilfully combining concepts in the endogenous theory of the natural rate of unemployment with concepts in trade theory, Hoon explains that it was the opening up to trade that brought down the natural rate in East Asia. The effects on the wage gap and the unemployment pattern are brought in. Thus the book both extends employment theory and enriches the theory of the gains from trade.'

• Contents: Preface 1. Introduction 2. Factors Shaping Singapore’s Wages and Unemployment 3. The Ricardian Model with an Endogenous Natural Rate 4. The Heckscher–Ohlin Model with an Endogenous Natural Rate 5. International Product–Market Competition, Jobs and Wages 6. Scale Economies, Jobs and Wages 7. Trade, High-wage Jobs and the Wage Gap 8. International Trade and Wage Inequality: The Role of Economies of Scale and Relative Factor Endowments 9. Wealth, Labour Force Participation and Trade 10. Trade, Growth and Unemployment in Ricardo’s Essay on Profits Model 11. A Synthesis References Index