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Abstract The earnings of individuals depend on the demand for the factor services they supply. International trade may therefore affect earnings inequality because either (i) foreign consumers and firms demand domestic factor services in different proportions than domestic consumers and firms do, an export channel; or (ii) domestic consumers and firms change their demand for domestic factor services in response to the availability of foreign goods, an import channel. Building on this idea, we develop new measures of export and import exposure at the individual level and provide estimates of their incidence across the earnings distribution. The key input fed into our empirical analysis is a unique administrative data set from Ecuador that merges firm-to-firm transaction data, employer-employee matched data, owner-firm matched data, and firm-level customs transaction records. We find that export exposure is pro-middle class, import exposure is pro-rich, and in terms of overall incidence, the import channel is the dominant force. As a result, earnings inequality in Ecuador is higher than it would be in the absence of trade.
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Who Benefits from State Corporate Tax Cuts? A Local Labor Market Approach with Heterogeneous Firms: Reply
In Suárez Serrato and Zidar (2016), we estimate the incidence of state corporate taxes. Malgouyres, Mayer, and Mazet-Sonilhac (2023) highlight two errors, ignoring effects on firm composition and characterizing capital costs inconsistently. This reply corrects the structural model and corresponding incidence estimates. The incidence results are similar to the originally reported estimates and the confidence intervals widen for some estimates. In the corrected structural model, the firm owner incidence share estimate changes by 1.6 percentage points relative to the original version (i.e., 38.1 percent versus 36.5 percent). The worker share estimate is 35.0 percent. Landowners bear the remaining 26.8 percent. (JEL H22, H25, H32, H71, R23, R51)
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- Award ID(s):
- 1752431
- PAR ID:
- 10498896
- Publisher / Repository:
- American Economic Association
- Date Published:
- Journal Name:
- American Economic Review
- Volume:
- 113
- Issue:
- 12
- ISSN:
- 0002-8282
- Page Range / eLocation ID:
- 3401 to 3410
- Format(s):
- Medium: X
- Sponsoring Org:
- National Science Foundation
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- Free Publicly Accessible Full Text
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Accepted Manuscript1.0
- Journal Article:
- https://doi.org/10.1257/aer.20230208
