Trade and growth in an unequal global economy

Abstract

This paper studies the patterns of trade and the incentives to innovate in an unequal global economy. We introduce non-homothetic preferences in a general-equilibrium model of endogenous growth and international trade between two countries, and argue that the effects of market integration on the consequent trade patterns and the incentives to innovate depend on the degree of income inequality across countries. We find that if inequality across countries is low, the extensive margin of trade between countries is high whereas the world Show more