نابرابری در همه جا: اثر بازار خانگی در فضای چند کشور

We show that spatial inequalities in an economic space of multiple countries in terms of both nominal income and real income are ubiquitous in the sense that they appear when countries are differentiated by population only. A new trade theory model is constructed without any freely traded homogeneous good, so that we can examine the home market effect (HME) and the non-monotonic relation between income inequalities and globalization. Meanwhile, there are three HME definitions for a two-country space in terms of firm share, labor wage, and trade pattern. The first two remain applicable in a multicountry space, and they are shown to be equivalent. However, a natural extension of the third is not equivalent.

Two kinds of inequality are known in our society, natural or physical and ethical or political. The former is attributed to different skills and abilities and is considered acceptable, while the latter results from specific economic systems and is considered detrimental because it makes economies inefficient and unstable. This naturally leads to a question, is the second inequality avoidable? This paper focuses on spatial inequality, which appears not only between countries but also within them, exhibiting uneven economic development. Globalization is one of the reasons for spatial income inequalities (Anand and Segal, 2008). The heterogeneity of space (uneven distribution of technologies, natural resources, and amenities) results in such inequalities, whose linkage has been extensively explored by traditional trade theory. Meanwhile, by a model of New Trade Theory (NTT), a recent paper of Takahashi et al. (2013) shows that the income inequality between two countries always occur in the spatial equilibrium even when the countries are homogeneous and differ only in size. Moreover, such a spatial inequality initially rises and then falls when globalization deepens. Consequently, the inequality appears even when there are no relative advantages in technology,

This paper reveals the close relation between the country size and economic activity in a multicountry space when there are no relative advantages in technology, resource endowment and geographic feature. Unlike most NTT papers, our framework does not assume a freely traded homogeneous good, so wage rates are endogenously determined, deriving the spatial income inequality. The results show that the spatial income inequalities in terms of both nominal income and real income are ubiquitous. The income inequality is examined by the HME concept. There are three equivalent definitions of the HME in a two-country space according to Takahashi et al. (2013). We prove that two of them, in terms of firm share and wage, are equivalent in a multicountry space. Both of them are observed in our model. However, the definition in terms of trade pattern is not equivalent to the other two.