A Study Of Effect Of Economic Openness On China's Wage Gap

With the deepening of trade liberalization, the relationship between economic openness and wage gap is concerned by more and more scholars, which becomes a hotspot in the field of international economics. From different perspectives, such as merchandise trade, service trade and foreign direct investment, many scholars studied the impact of opening on China's wage gap through theoretical models and empirical analysis. These studies not only improve the theoretical system, but also provide a very good guidance for the adjustments of our trade policy and income distribution policy. With the discussion of economic openness on the wage gap, the majority only investigated the impact of trade liberalization or foreign direct investment on the wage gap, lacking of systematic analysis.In addition, as a core element of trade, intellectual property issues have caught more and more attention. The role of intellectual property protection in the economy can not be ignored, but less considered intellectual property protection when they studied the impact of openness on the wage gap. Based on this, this dissertation considers three major elements of economic openness:trade liberalization, foreign direct investment and intellectual property protection, so as to achieve a comprehensive study of the influence mechanism of economic openness on the wage gap, and get some useful inspiration on how to reduce the wage gap.Through the combination of literature, mathematical analysis and empirical analysis, this dissertation elaborates the theoretical basis of economic openness on the wage gap, describes the development of China's merchandise trade, foreign direct investment, intellectual property rights protection and industry wage gap, derives the functional relationships between the intra-industry trade, FDI, intellectual property protection and the industry wage gap, and analyzes the empirical fact that economic openness has affected the industry wage gap.By the comb and induction of neo-classical trade theory, new trade theory and the theory of foreign direct investment affecting the wage gap, we find the theoretical mechanism about the economic openness on the wage gap, providing a theoretical basis for the analysis of the entire article. By the status quo description of China's merchandise trade, foreign direct investment, intellectual property protection and the industry wage gap, we find that during the period of the rapid growth of China's foreign trade, foreign direct investment, intellectual property protection intensity, China's wage gaps between industries and within the same industry are also expanding. these facts provide a realistic support for the study.The fourth, five, six and seven chapter study respectively the impact of intra-industry trade, foreign direct investment and intellectual property protection on the industrial wage gap through theoretical models and econometric test, mainly drawing the following conclusions:(1) In markets characterized by monopolistic competition, the relationship between intra-industry trade and the relative wage gap depends on the output elasticity of substitution (the percentage change in the ratio of high-skilled to low-skilled labor demanded brought about by a percent change in output). If the output elasticity of substitution is positive, intra-industry trade will expand the relative wage gap; otherwise, intra-industry trade will reduce the relative wage gap. Then we verify the conclusion on the basis of China-U.S. intra-industry trade of manufactured goods through quantitative analysis, we find that the output elasticity of substitution of manufactured goods is positive, China-U.S. intra-industry trade expands the relative wage gap.(2)Foreign direct investment affects the wage gap mainly through four channels:the employment effect, the human capital accumulation effect, the technology spillover effect and the pulling trade effect. Through the panel data, we find that the coefficient of FDI on the industry wage gap is significantly negative, FDI is narrowing the wage gap. We need to adhere to the policy of increasing the fdi intensity.(3)Technology spillover effect is an important channel of import or FDI affecting the wage gap, the technology spillovers of import and FDI are skill biased, they will increase the demand for skilled labor directly, thereby increasing the wage level of skilled labor resulting in the expansion of the wage gap. At the same time, intellectual property protection is an important institutional factor affecting the technology spillover, the intellectual property protection can affect the wage gap indirectly through the technology spillovers of import and FDI. By quantitative analysis, we find that the technology spillovers of import and FDI are expanding China's industrial relative wage gap. The synergies of intellectual property protection and import technology spillover have expanded the wage gap in China, but the synergies of intellectual property protection and FDI technology spillover have narrowed the wage gap in China.(4)Intellectual property protection can affect the wage gap directly. When the rise rate of intellectual property protection of the technical knowledge to match the skilled labor is greater than the rise rate of the technical knowledge protection to match the unskilled labor, the wage gap will be expanded; otherwise, the wage gap will be reduced. Intellectual property protection in China has significantly expanded the industrial relative wage gap. In view of this, when strengthening the technology patent protection matched to the skilled labors, we should also strengthen the technology patent protection matched to the unskilled labors, which can not only promote China's technological progress, but also help to narrow the wage gap between skilled labor and unskilled labor.