Relación entre comercio, mercado laboral y pobreza. Una revisión de los principales aportes

During the last decades, there has been a process of intense changes in the global trade integration. Uruguay has not been outside of these changes, particularly from the 1990s. The impact evaluation of trade on labor market outcomes, poverty and income distribution is a relatively recent research field, and especially for Uruguay. In this study we sintetize the main theoretical approaches used to analyze those links, distinguishing the direct and indirect effect of trade, as well as the metodological alternatives commonly applied. Moreover, even though this review does not pretend to be exhaustive, we summarize the obtained results in several studies in Latin American and in particular for Uruguay, with the aim of detecting possible future research lines. In general terms, we find that the results are not consistent with respect to the impact of trade opennes on wage gap and poverty. This result is not specific of the Uruguayan case, since internationally there is not consensus either. In this sense, to study those links for an specific sector or on trade with a particular economy (under a FTA) would allow to understand better the impacts of openess.