This paper empirically examines the different comparative advantages of two emerging economic giants, China and India, in relation to the different skill distribution patterns in each country. By utilizing industry export data on China and India from 1983 to 2000, we find that a country with a greater dispersion of skills (i.e., India, especially in the earlier years) has higher exports in industries with shorter production chains, whereas a country with a more equal dispersion of skills (i.e., China, especially in the later years) is found to have higher exports in industries with longer production chains. The causal relationship is fairly robust across different specifications. This empirical evidence supports our assumption that the likely mechanism for these results is the negative impact of low-skilled workers on input quality, which accumulates and becomes larger as the length of production chains and the proportion of low-skilled workers in the economy increase.
権利
Copyrights 日本貿易振興機構（ジェトロ）アジア経済研究所 / Institute of Developing Economies, Japan External Trade Organization (IDE-JETRO) http://www.ide.go.jp
雑誌名
IDE Discussion Paper
雑誌名(英)
IDE Discussion Paper
巻
277
発行年
2011-02
出版者
Institute of Developing Economies (IDE-JETRO)
著者版フラグ
publisher
日本十進分類法
580.222
JEL分類
JEL:F14 - Country and Industry Studies of Trade
JEL:F16 - Trade and Labor Market Interactions
JEL:J2 - Time Allocation,
地域/国名
中国
インド
キーワード(LSH)
China
India
Manufacturing industries
Manufactures
Labor productivity
Labor conditions
International competition
Exports
Comparative advantage
Production chains
Sequential production
Skill distribution
Skill distribution and comparative advantage: a comparison of China and India
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