Trade Openness And Within – Country Income Distribution: A Meta-Regression Analysis

Abstract

The within-country income inequality effect from increasing trade openness has long been studied but remains disputed. This paper’s meta-regression analysis of 124 estimated within-country income inequality coefficients from twenty-five developing countries studies finds no overall economically meaningful significant inequality effect after controlling for publication bias. The result remains robust when controlling for 15 other characteristics of the estimates and using mixed-effects multilevel meta-regression to account for within-study variations. One possible explanation is that the effects of trade openness on inequality have been offset by other variables.