Export Quality and Income Distribution

This Element studies the attempts to estimate cross-country quality variations.

Rajat Acharyya (Author), Shrimoyee Ganguly (Author)

9781009124607, Cambridge University Press

Paperback / softback, published 9 February 2023

75 pages
22.9 x 15.2 x 0.5 cm, 0.152 kg

Given the increasing sensitivity of buyers in the richer countries towards quality of goods they consume, low-quality exports largely constrain export-growth of the developing countries. This Element documents the attempts to estimate cross-country quality variations and reviews the demand side and supply side explanations for the low-quality phenomenon. It examines how trade policies can incentivize export-quality upgrading, and discusses the underlying channels through which a reverse causality from export-quality upon within-country income or wage inequality may develop.

1. Introduction
2. Export Quality: Measurement Issues and the Cross-country Estimates
3. Explaining The Low (Export) Quality Phenomenon: Theory and Empirics
4. Trade Policies, Income Redistribution and Export Quality
5. Quality Variations, Income Redistribution and Employment
6. Domestic Demand, Market Imperfection and Urban Unemployment
7. Concluding Remarks.

Subject Areas: Development economics & emerging economies [KCM], International trade [KCLT], International economics [KCL], Economic growth [KCG]