ABSTRACT
The U.S. economy has become progressively more open to international trade during the last several decades, with successive rounds of tariff reductions through the General Agreement on Tariffs and Trade (GATT) and the implementation of various regional trade agreements (with Israel, Canada, and Mexico). Since 1973 average real wages in the United States have stagnated or fallen, and since 1980 the gap between the wages of college-educated and non-college-educated workers has widened dramatically. What, if any, connection is there between these two trends?
