Trade liberalisation, prices and the skill premium in South Africa
Master Thesis
2011
Permanent link to this Item
Authors
Supervisors
Journal Title
Link to Journal
Journal ISSN
Volume Title
Publisher
Publisher
University of Cape Town
Department
Faculty
License
Series
Abstract
We look at how trade liberalisation, working through product prices, has affected the skill premium in South Africa over the period 1990-2009. Our main finding is that trade liberalisation lead to a reduction in prices over this period, and through prices mandated a rise in the skill premium of 3.3%. The structure of the skill premium did not stay constant over the period. In the sub-period 1990-1999, trade liberalisation mandated a fall in the skill premium of 10.6% and in the other sub-period 2000-2009, trade liberalisation mandated a rise in the skill premium of 11.6%. Our main results are consistent with the sector bias of tariff cuts over these periods, however they do not pass some of the robustness checks that we perform.
Description
Keywords
Reference:
Mashiane, J. 2011. Trade liberalisation, prices and the skill premium in South Africa. University of Cape Town.