Although the wage distribution is central to analysing inequality issues, the provision of public services destined for t he poor can make an essential difference in evaluating inequality in welfare rather than in income. Whereas raising taxes to fund public services would lead to a...

The aim of this work is to analyse the general equilibrium effects of terms of trade shocks in exportable sectors under particular assumptions about labour market. The model used is based on the Blacke et al. (1995) model of the Mauritian economy, modelled as consisting of three productive...

This paper discusses the welfare effects of trade in a Heckscher-Ohlin model of trade with costs of adjustment. The paper analyses the efficiency and the distributional effects of eliminating a tariff in a formerly protected sector. The tariff can be eliminated at the onset or after a while. In...

Changes in technology and markets result in the transformation of economic structure: When labor is quasi-fixed due to short-term specificity, changing conditions may imply either temporary unemployment or the need of retraining to enable mobility across the sectors. There is an economy-wide...

Labour market condition have been very favourable in Uruguay in the last decade;however, the situation varies according to workers qualifications. This is so in terms of employment growth, unemployment rates, wage rates, and also in the presence of informality. This paper focuses on several aspects...

Some countries seem to be lagging behind in global accumulation of skills. As the ratio of skilled to unskilled labour is key for growth (e.g. endogenous growth theory), this situation suggests a gloomy future for developing countries. Is catching up with the developed world?s levels of skills...

Standard trade theory suggests that trade liberalization produces opposite effects on human capital accumulation in developed and developing countries, reducing the incentives to invest in education in skill-scarce countries. How would conventional wisdom be modified if we introduce public...

The evidence of effects of education activities on growth is mixed. So, could education be good, neutral, or bad, depending on the case? While the model in this paper remains close to the Heckscher-Ohlin tradition, it is shown that, contrary to the standard results, it is the net effect of...