Trade liberalisation, wage inequality and cross-occupation skill imbalances

In case anyone is interested, I’ve uploaded a copy of my extended essay for my Development and Growth class (that’s EC428) here.  In case anybody cares, I got a 70 for it (if you’ve never studied in the UK and think that 70 is a pretty ordinary grade, well … it’s different here (economics is at the bottom)).

In hindsight, there are quite a few areas that could use some improvement and if I get a good enough grade on it, I may try to expand it in an attempt to get something published.

The abstract:

This paper proposes a model that, focusing on the imperfect transfer of skill across occupations, is able to explain trade or investment liberalisation-induced increases in inequality independently of technological change or capital flows. It identifies imbalances in skill across occupations as a potential source of rent-seeking behaviour and predicts that when this occurs, firms may choose to employ highly trained individuals to fill roles with both high and low education requirements.

Update 12 October 2007:
Tweaked the link to point to a PDF rather than a word document.