The effects of trade liberalization on wages, inequality, and employment in middle-income countries remains an important empirical question. However, with few exceptions, most of the empirical literature has focused on aggregate impacts at a national or regional level and the effects on skilled versus unskilled workers. This paper focuses on the effects of trade liberalization on industry-specific wages, earnings, and employment in rural and urban areas of Peru, providing more nuanced evidence on the distributional effects of trade. We use an instrumental variable approach and different measures of trade liberalization for the 2001–2016 period. Our main results suggest that, first, trade openness is associated with an increase in urban workers’ earnings and wages, with self-employed workers benefitting the most. Second, whereas wages of workers with low and high levels of education decrease as a consequence of trade openness, the earnings of self-employed workers are affected positively, benefiting unskilled workers the most. In addition, while earnings increase in almost all industries in both rural and urban areas, effects are heterogeneous for wages. Overall, both salaried and self-employed agricultural workers benefitted from trade openness, indicative that agriculture is a competitive sector with important export potential.

贸易自由化对中等收入国家的工资、不平等和就业的影响仍然是一个重要的实证问题。然而，除了少数例外，大多数实证文献都集中在国家或地区层面的总体影响以及对熟练工人与非熟练工人的影响。本文侧重于贸易自由化对秘鲁农村和城市地区特定行业的工资、收入和就业的影响，为贸易的分配影响提供更细致的证据。我们在 2001-2016 年期间使用工具变量方法和不同的贸易自由化措施。我们的主要结果表明，首先，贸易开放与城镇工人收入和工资的增加有关，个体经营者受益最大。第二，虽然贸易开放导致受教育程度低和受教育程度高的工人的工资下降，但自雇工人的收入受到积极影响，最有利于非技术工人。此外，虽然农村和城市地区几乎所有行业的收入都有所增加，但工资的影响却是不同的。总体而言，受薪和自雇农业工人都从贸易开放中受益，这表明农业是一个具有重要出口潜力的具有竞争力的部门。