The Impact of Trade Liberalization

Revision with unchanged content. Various studies have been done to analyze the effect of trade liberalization on income inequality in India. However there are conflicting views. This book is outcome of this debate. It empirically investigates the effect of trade liberalization on income inequality in India covering a time period from 1987-2003. Using a distributed lag model with the independent variable as exports and trade as a percentage of GDP, and dependent variables as the Gini Coefficient and Coefficient of Variation, it is seen that income distribution is impacted in a non-uniform manner. Overall, trade liberalization has a weak impact on income inequality and increasing state inequality. Based on detailed results the book recommends policies to assist liberalization having a positive impact on income distribution in India. The book is addressed to students, researchers, and policy makers who are interested to study this subject with respect to India.