Trade in intermediates, also known as unbundling of production, and trade in capital have become increasingly important in the world economy during the last 25 years. To jointly study these two phenomena, we develop a dynamic, factor-proportions model with trade in final goods, intermediates and capital where countries differ in their aggregate productivity levels (TFP). Our central result is to identify a novel channel whereby trade in intermediates generates a reallocation of capital across countries that exacerbates world inequality in both income and welfare. With unbundling, high-productivity countries sort into the production of capital-intensive intermediates. They increase their capital stock (via capital imports and accumulation), and, ultimately, their real wages. This exacerbates initial productivity differences across countries and increases world income inequality. We also show that income inequality rises with unbundling (i) even in the case of ex-ante identical countries (symmetry breaking), (ii) when emerging countries start participating in trade in intermediates and (iii) when a labor-saving technology (computerization) is introduced. For an empirically-motivated model parametrization, middle-income countries experience the largest output decline with unbundling.

中文翻译：

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世界收入分配：国际生产捆绑销售的影响

在过去的25年中，中间体贸易（也称为生产捆绑）和资本贸易在世界经济中变得越来越重要。为了共同研究这两种现象，我们建立了一个动态的因子比例模型，该模型利用了最终产品，中间产品和资本的贸易，这些国家的总生产率水平（TFP）不同。我们的主要结果是找到一种新颖的渠道，通过该渠道，中间体贸易可以在各个国家之间重新分配资本，从而加剧世界上收入和福利方面的不平等。通过分拆，高生产率国家进入了资本密集型中间体的生产。他们增加了资本存量（通过资本进口和积累），并最终增加了实际工资。这加剧了各国之间最初的生产率差异，并加剧了世界收入不平等。我们还表明，收入不平等会随着捆绑的增加而加剧（i）即使在事前相同的国家（对称性破裂），（ii）新兴国家开始参与中间体贸易，以及（iii）节省劳力的技术（电脑化）。对于出于经验动机的模型参数化，中等收入国家的产出下降最大，并且捆绑销售。