This paper analyses the relationship between a country’s income distribution and its exports’ unit values. Using bilateral export flows, we not only confirm the positive association between a country’s average income and its export unit values, but further identify a heterogeneous relationship with income inequality: we find a greater income spread to be associated with higher export unit values in the case of poor countries only. These results are robust to the inclusion of controls for other determinants of export unit values, as well as to the use of alternative measures of income inequality and of the quality index. We finally discuss various theoretical rationalisations for this heterogeneous relationship between income inequality and the quality content of exports along the average income dimension, and show suggestive evidence that demand-side mechanisms can account for it, at least partly.

本文分析了一个国家的收入分配与其出口单位价值之间的关系。使用双边出口流量，我们不仅可以确认一个国家的平均收入与其出口单位价值之间存在正相关关系，而且可以进一步确定与收入不平等之间的异质关系：在这种情况下，我们发现较高的收入利差与较高的出口单位价值相关联仅贫穷国家。这些结果对于将控制出口单位价值的其他决定因素包括在内的控制方法，以及对收入不平等和质量指数的替代衡量方法的使用都是有力的。最后，我们讨论了针对收入不平等与平均质量维度上的出口质量含量之间这种异质关系的各种理论合理性，