Is there a close link between globalisation, manufacturing employment and inequalities?

In OECD countries, globalisation should in theory lead to a rise in skilled wages relative to unskilled wages, and therefore to increased inequality; to a contraction in unsophisticated industries, and therefore to manufacturing job losses; and to redistributive policies financed by taxes that create distortions, leading to a loss of activity (1) . But what is the magnitude of this effect? Does it explain most of the rise in inequality, shortfalls in growth and manufacturing job losses? (2) We will try to answer this question by comparing OECD countries. Is there a significant correlation between their degree of globalisation (size of imports from emerging countries or trade deficits with emerging countries, the economy’s degree of openness), the level of income inequality, growth, manufacturing employment and the size of industry? The only effect that appears is that a trade deficit with emerging countries is correlated with the size of employment and industrial value added and with its trend. Wi th this approach, globalisation does not seem to have any effects on growth, inequality or the scale of redistributive policies. See for example Pol Antràs, Alonso de Gortari, O. Itskhoki "Globalization, inequality and welfare" NBER Working Paper no. 22676, September 2016 Recent economic literature (see the very complete survey of Elhanan Helpman "Globalization and wage equality" NBER Working Paper no. 22944, December 2016