Several empirical studies have shown that the effect of openness on the gender wage gap depends on the skill requirement of the workplace. This paper offers a theoretical explanation to understand that finding. We integrate a statistical discrimination framework with the labour assignment...

International trade has been expected to reduce the gender wage gap by increasing competition and thus reducing the rents that allow employers to discriminate. However, some empirical assessments find an opposite effect. We provide an explanation for the puzzling result that trade openness...