De com la globalització redueix les desigualtats

Johan Norberg:

If there is something everybody agrees on, it is that inequlity is increasing in the US, and that trade with China is partly to blame. But everybody haven´t read this yet. Chicago economists Christian Broda and John Romalis look (pdf) at inflation rates between 1994 and 2005, and find that rates are much lower for goods (partly because of imports from China) than on services. This is interesting because the poor consume more goods and the rich more services.

This means that inflation rates for the richest ten percent outpaced inflation rates for the poorest by about 4 percent. This wipes out two thirds of the rise in inequality during these years, and China is responsible for half of that reduction. This is - or at least, it should be - influential findings in the US trade debate. Inequality is rising because of bigger education premiums, but trade helps to keep it lower. So the protectionists would not just make Ameria poorer but also more unequal.