Trade, Jobs and Wages

The world's increasing integration through trade and the persistence of high unemployment in Europe, and other areas of the world, highlight the need to understand the implications of free trade for unemployment. Trade, Jobs and Wages analyses how employment levels and real wages are affected by international trade. Popular trade theory disregards the impact of free trade on the rate of unemployment, since it assumes full employment at the outset. By focusing on the determinants of the natural rate of unemployment, Professor Hoon places an emphasis on real, as opposed to monetary, factors in accounting for long term trends in wages and unemployment. The author examines the influence of trade on jobs and wages in different theoretical settings, including the Ricardian and Heckscher-Ohlin models as well as models exhibiting imperfect competition and scale economies. The influence of trade on high wage jobs and wage inequalities is also discussed.